ShareHave you met…Billy & Ross?
Chances are, if you have decided to approach Coast about working together over the last decade you will have been in contact with our “front line,” the problem-solving pair, Billy & Ross. Having been with the company for 7 & 11 years respectively, they have seen their fair share of challenging projects & clients who just need more support.
What made you join Coast?
B: While I was working at another agency I would see Coast coming up on LinkedIn a lot, they were incredibly pro-active, which was a great indication of how they work for their clients. This along with how they worked to set themselves apart made them really interesting to me so when I had the opportunity to join them as an Account Manager, I jumped at the chance. After a few years, I moved into the Business Development team.
R: Coast’s reputation is just really strong. Although I was initially introduced to them through a third party they kept my interest with everything I heard about them. It made me keep tabs on them and jump at an opportunity to be a part of it as soon as I could.
You have both been with Coast for a while now, what is it that you love about working together?
R: We have a healthy competition between each other as any sales team would have but we both have eyes on the bigger picture; we are always supporting each other which is only to the benefit of our clients, and Coast. We know that if one of us hasn’t seen a particular project or issue before, the likelihood is the other one will have so we can bounce ideas off each other in order to come up with the best solution.
B: The way in which we interact with clients and the way we problem solve is similar it means we work well as a team to fix issues and bring the best outcomes to our clients.
Which service stands out to you the most?
B: UX, our approach to it which includes our use of Biometrics. The time taken to understand our client’s customers makes an incredible difference to them. Everything we do considers the wider customer experience which sets us apart, how everything connects rather than the isolated piece we are working on. We have some great examples of that, working with Tool Station, helping them encourage their customers to move from traditional paper-based to online shopping and how that audience interaction differs depending on the country they are shopping in. Another great example is Ayming, who operate in 15 different countries and needed a tailored responsive website for each of them. That was a bigger picture project and meant real time and effort into research to make sure the ROI was there.
R: Integrated content campaigns are so satisfying to work on. When you fully understand a client need, the brand objectives and the brand identity we can offer some really tangible benefits. You can see really see results, and often quickly. The work we did with Intertrust was a great example of this. They had struggled to obtain qualified leads via digital channels. In a tough, competitive industry we have used PPC and SEO as the baseline for growth – driving more leads, whilst driving up lead quality too. We are now running an innovation program, ramping up activity and the returns will follow. I’m also really proud of the fact that we take these skills and apply them to our charity clients too. We make a difference to not only those charities but the people that depend on them.
Looking forward what do you see becoming more prevalent?
R: Headless CMS is becoming a lot more prominent and will continue to do so. For bigger businesses we also seeing them move to a ‘second CMS’ system where platforms such as WordPress is used more for a variety of reasons; campaigns, speed, flexibility, cost etc.
B: We are going to see more companies leveraging emerging technologies like AI as well. It is getting to the point now where although the technology has been around for a while, its practical applications in Digital Marketing are allowing us to drive stronger results. We have been using it in the past for things like PPC campaigns but we are now moving more to doing it for things like copywriting.
Finally, what do you wish clients understood more?
B: Although attitudes towards this are starting to change some clients still do not see the value of the initial research phase of a project. They hope that they absolutely know what their customers want but in reality, there are still too many assumptions, which in the long term can have a detrimental effect on ROI.
R: Some clients feel that a simple task once delivered, should be simple to achieve – this is often not the case and however simple the end result, can actually be a lot more challenging to implement. In many ways this is at the heart of good UX – it should feel effortless for the end-user – but someone has got to do the ‘work’ whether its strategic or technical, to enable that frictionless front-end experience or journey.
B: Agreed, there are some clients who are more technology-led rather than customers actually need from them. Never underestimate the power of a simple brochure wear site with strong calls to action. It can work a lot more efficiently and be a lot more cost-effective. It is one of the reasons why we work with opensource.
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