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Clarity

Dan Neale

London

I have over 15 years experience in PR and digital marketing working with some of the worlds largest and most recognised brands. In 2013 I setup PR, Social & Digital agency Alfred.

Communications

From launching Amazon’s corporate social media activity in the UK to helping the likes of Oatly, Nespresso and Mars develop communications programmes that drive results. At Alfred we have won numerous awards for our work, with a key focus on delivering against goals and objectives,

Expert areas include: Communications strategy and planning, messaging, crisis management, social media strategy, public relations, social media technology, and media buying/planning for social media (e.g. FacebookMeta, Twitter, YouTube, Google etc.)

Agency Leadership

Tapping into the things learnt from growing a business that started with zero funding, and fuelled solely by overconfidence, self belief and a PO number from our first client - I am offering practical consultancy to help others that at the early stage of growth, with the various practical things that add value to an agency business.

Examples include:
- Financial forecasting, management, setting operating KPIs and managing commercial performance (as often at the early stage we don’t have a FD, and knowing your numbers and what they mean as an MD or founder is imperative for success)
- Setting up tools to manage finance, new business pipelines (to give you insight and data into why you win or don't’) along with team and HR platforms that support culture and drive efficiencies
- Implementing timesheets to track utilisation and servicing to understand pressure points
- New business and business development strategies - from growing inbound leads, through to proactive prospecting
- Having difficult client conversations, when you need to push back, ask for more budget or address issues
- Leadership development and mindset
- Culture development to create a great place to work
- Participating in industry certifications such as PRCA CMS, and going through the B orp journey
- General troubleshooting from client issues, to business decisions

$1.67/min

11 Calls

7 Reviews

26 minutes
Avg. call

Digital Marketing Public relations Social Media Social Media Marketing Community Management Twitter Digital Media Facebook YouTube New Media

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PR and Public Relations

Created and launched PR agency Alfred, and won the PRCA (Public Relations Consultancy Association) "New Consultancy of the Year" in 2014. Deep understanding of how PR works, and what a company or brand needs to do to develop a strategy and implement internally as well as with agencies.

Digital Strategy

Created and launched PR agency Alfred, and won the PRCA (Public Relations Consultancy Association) "New Consultancy of the Year" in 2014. Deep understanding of how digital works, and what a company or brand needs to do to develop a strategy and implement internally as well as with agencies.

Build Your Brand Through Social Marketing

Book a call to discuss your brand, the ambitions of your business, and how social can provide a tool to build, scale and drive value.

I am able to consult of key areas that will enable you to build a successful strategy, and deliver results.

Key areas to consider:
- Social footprint - where you are at now, and how this compares to competitors
- Setting of performance KPIs to ensure that your activity has a goal and is measurable
- Understanding what content works, and where you should invest efforts into content production
- Tactics to drive audience growth and engagement
- How paid media activity can be effectively deployed to quickly scale results and grow following
- Creating content that taps into trends, and much more

Experience:

From launching Amazon’s social media activity in the UK to helping Toshiba UK become a social brand, and winning industry awards with video game client 505 games for innovative social and community work. My experience is this area is vast and well recognised.

Creating a Brand Purpose - Why Do You Exist?

In a time when customer expectations are drastically increasing, we now expect brands to stand for something, beyond profit, sales or their product.

Customers will buy your project or service because they like what you stand for a business. This brand purpose is the single most important element to get right when communicating to both customers and staff.

This vision and reason to exist inspires, and sets a clear picture to what you're trying to achieve, and how you're a force for good. I've help numerous brands explore and craft clear communications around "WHY" they exist. This is a powerful message, and one that resonates with multiple stakeholders.

If you'd like to really define and articulate what your brands brings, and the WHY behind it all (as often you already know, but refinement is key) - get in touch and we can explore on a call, with the goal to refine and wordsmith, to ensure that this building block is robust as it will aid future business growth.

Agency Leadership - How to Grow and Scale Your Agency

Tapping into the things learnt from growing a business that started with zero funding, and fuelled solely by overconfidence, self belief and a PO number from our first client - I am looking to help others that are at the early stage of growth, with the various practical things that add value to an agency business.

I’ll be focusing on a few areas, which can be delivered through ongoing consultancy or training packages developed specifically to your needs:

- Financial forecasting, management, setting operating KPIs and managing commercial performance (as often at the early stage we don’t have a FD, and knowing your numbers and what they mean as an MD or founder is imperative for success)
- Setting up tools to manage finance, new business pipelines (to give you insight and data into why you win or don't’) along with team and HR platforms that support culture and drive efficiencies
- Implementing timesheets to track utilisation and servicing to understand pressure points
- New business and business development strategies - from growing inbound leads, through to proactive prospecting
- Having difficult client conversations, when you need to push back, ask for more budget or address issues
- Leadership development and mindset
- Culture development to create a great place to work
- Participating in industry certifications such as PRCA CMS, and going through the B Corp journey
- General troubleshooting from client issues, to business decisions

Answers 13
Reviews 7

Answers

Dan Neale answered

Do I hire a PR company for my croudfunding campaign or not?

If your objective is to get a product funded, then getting on the news isn't necessarily the best route as this is a very broad approach vs targeted. Am assuming that whoever will invest in your product, will need to have a bit of understanding about what it offers photographers? From an editorial perspective, bloggers and journalists will write about something if it is genuinely newsworthy. Would need to know more about the product and how it would/could innovate to tell you if I think it is. Would always say, that a more targeted approach is best.

One thing I have done many times is research into a specific niche (e.g. photographers) then create an influencer list from that to then target with a story/product etc. Would look for those that may have written about similar products. A modern PR agency should be able to do this for you and have skills in this area.

Another route, beyond the photography blogs and specialist media etc. is to use things like social media advertising, targeting those that have an interest in photography. This is more guaranteed in a sense, and you could manage how much money you put into it and what the target cost per click is. Budget would play a factor, but social media ad platforms can provide a very targeted way to reach people and deliver highly favourable CPC rates, and as a result great ROI.

Would compliment this with community outreach, targeting photography forums by approaching moderators and asking them what they thought of the product and how happy they wold be to post, or allow you to post to the community.

For something like this, would say the best way is a combination of various tactics just one approach. You need people talking about it to create that groundswell, but you also need a guarantee in terms of traffic. Would be hard to guide anymore without a more in-depth understanding of the product and its benefits. Hope this is helpful, let me know if you'd like to chat more.

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Social Media Marketing

Online Marketing

Digital Marketing Strategy

Dan Neale answered

Can i reach all users from one specific country in Facebook?

Technically yes, you can. But would always advise a more targeted approach to advertising on Facebook, or any marketing channel. Although you product may be nationalistic, just because someone is Irish doesn't mean they would have an interest in buying it. You'd have to be a certain type of person. Would strongly advise more thought around the audience you are trying to reach and what motivates them along with thinking about your current customers to work out a customer profile. Then developing a highly targeted ad campaign around that with creative and copy that will resonate with your potential customer. Hope this helps, let me know if you'd like to talk more.

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Facebook

Facebook Marketing

Promotions

Dan Neale answered

Marketing strategy for a web based startup - how can we get to 5-10k subscribers per month?

Without knowing more (idea, price point, audience, b2b or b2c etc.), it is hard to give you in-depth or potentially relevant advice. Would say, initial thought is that your target for your subscribers is fairly punchy and would need some considerable investment from both a perforce marketing perspective but also wider activity.

There are things that can be done to optimise your current activity e.g. your PPC conversion. For example, if you're a new company and there is limited info about you in the public domain it may be harder for you to convert a click to a subscriber as there may be lack of trust. Would you give money to a new company if you didn't know if what they were selling was any good or not? So things like reviews and endorsements from experts, media, bloggers, journalists in the sector are important.

Areas to look at would be:

PR - engaging the industry with your idea or product. Be that trade media or consumer depending on the audeince

Influencer outreach - hitting up the influential people in that industry and getting them onboard so they talk about you socially, on blogs, twitter etc.

Community engagement - working with existing online communities that are in your niche/sector and getting key people there to talk about it and test your product out

Social media - activating your current customer base through engaging content so they share with their followers (friends have friends that are in similar sectors) and also showing customers they have somewhere public to come should things not go to plan

Hope this helps, would need to know more to help further. Give me a shout if you want to talk. Cheers.

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Marketing Strategy

Online Marketing

Dan Neale answered

What are the best measurement points for a brand campaign on YouTube?

Engagement in the form of comments, likes/dislikes will give you more of an understanding than looking just at views. Also, if you include a click through on the video (in description) you can measure the click through rate and see how effective your video is at driving traffic to a website or destination. Metrics need to be suitable to the campaign, so would need to know more about the campaign to advise. Happy to discuss if you want to talk further.

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YouTube

Social Media Marketing

Social Media Strategy

Dan Neale answered

Is using a PR firm a waste of money to get coverage for a startup?

Totally depends on what value you a expecting back, what's the reason for hiring the agency and how much you're willing to invest in building the company/ startup profile.

Can you share any info on the startup and what you think a PR company will do, and what you'd expect to see as ROI?

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Public relations

Journalism

Marketing Strategy

Dan Neale answered

Is sending a press release through something like prweb a good idea or waste of money? Is it better to just go direct and customize emails?

One million percent the best route is to target and customise the approaches. Identify why you think the story is relevant and where it will sit. Highlight an existing segment or column that it is perfect for on the outlet you are targeting. Tailoring approaches is what will ensure you generate a much better conversion, this also requires using the phone to follow up. Hope this helps.

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Public relations

Start-ups

Press Releases

Dan Neale answered

What is the best source of traffic (or tactic) to predictably generate high-volumes of traffic at a $0.05 CPC in a mass market?

Would need more info. But check out Facebook's ad platform as this will enable you to control CPC as well as getting more intelligent and working in conversion through tracking pixels and data. Hope this helps!

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Traffic Generation

Traffic Monetization

Digital Marketing

Dan Neale answered

Where is the best place to find out which bloggers/journalists/writers cover different topics?

Hi there, there a few ways of doing this. Is it a complete list across verticals you need, or is it for a specific purpose?

If you can let us know a few more details I may be able to help.

Thanks
Dan

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Public relations

Journalism

Growth Hacking

Dan Neale answered

How should I go about syndicating my content to other sites?

Really depends on the content and what you mean by content. You talking video, images, press releases? Need a bit more info to help with this one.

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Content Syndication

Dan Neale answered

What is the biggest mistake that startups make when speaking to journalists?

Quite a broad question. Agencies and publicists that are experienced have learnt many things over the years, which will all play part of best practice. As a staring point, would suggest you think about the following:

- Ensure your pitch is concise and to the point. Lead with what is most newsworthy to readers of the publication you are targeting
- Be harsh. Consider if what you are sending them really news?
- Rearsearch the journalist and tailor pitch to reference articles they have written or areas they have an interest in
- Go to the right person. Don't sent an irrelevant story to the journalist. Make sure they actually write about what you are sending them
- Be prepared. Have facts and information ready
- Use the phone. Imagine how many emails they get each day! You're far better pitching on the phone, and talking over the news and then following up with tailored into based on their feedback

If you get the approach wrong then your pitch is going to be sent to the junk folder and you simply won't get a reply or answer.

Hope that's not too blunt! Hope it helps. Thanks.

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Online Journalism

Startups

Public relations

Dan Neale answered

Is content syndication a good or bad idea for articles of a startup blog?

You really have to think about the objective. Why do you want to do it? Assume it is to drive traffic?

Best way, is to focus on creating content that people want to read and share, then pushing out with paid support via social platforms, influencers and partners.

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Content Strategy

Content Syndication

Start-ups

Reviews

I had so many great ideas I could barely keep up. Dan is a true expert in PR, digital marketing and more.

Kess Eburu Source: Clarity

Once again Dan has provided excellent advice!

Krista Johnson Source: Clarity

Excellent quality. Helpful perspective.

Krista Johnson Source: Clarity

Dan was very insightful and helpful with his expertise in digital and social marketing techniques and tactics.

Robb Miller Source: Clarity

Dan stands out for the lengths he'll go to get the job done well for his clients. His commitment is backed up with a sound understanding of how to amplify his clients' message by the best means possible.

Aalia Walker Source: LinkedIn

I've worked with Dan on a number of clients and various projects and always value his input and opinion. His knowledge in the digital sphere is amazing. Even running strategies past him on clients we don't work together on. I know I'm about to embark on a great campaign for clients when collaborating with Dan. The guy simply knows what he talking about.

Vincent Haywood Source: LinkedIn

Dan is a truly exceptional Digital guy. He's really bright, and I'm sure is on his way to being a senior account handler or planner in digital. I can't recommend him highly enough.

Adam Price Source: LinkedIn

Member since February 2015