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Juno Media now on the Recommended Agency Register

Here at Juno Copywriting, we rub shoulders with web developers and designers on a daily basis – and now, our uniting agency Juno Media has become part of the Recommended Agency Register, or RAR. This is a big opportunity, and we’re looking forward to all sorts of new challenges.

The RAR is a massive guide to marketing services agencies, used by big brands and even some household names. Juno Media has been recommended highly by some clients via the website, and we’re now listed as a trusted agency with a proven ability to give clients what they want.

Juno Media is now rubbing shoulders with some of the biggest and brightest names in marketing, PR, design and advertising. Being part of this group is a big accolade, and we’re especially pleased that Juno Media clients have been so chuffed with their results.

It’s important that the reason for our inclusion has come from client recommendations. That’s the whole premise of the guide – that only agencies which have been proven to deliver results are included. Client’s rate their satisfaction across a number of categories, everything from creativity to professionalism and strategy. Juno Media performed well across the board, and has been recommended for digital and design services, two particular strengths.

Clients browsing the RAR will now be able to see Juno Media is a recommended agency – giving us extra pulling power when it comes to big clients. Busy brands won’t want to trawl through agencies that won’t deliver, and that’s what the RAR does best. It’s made up of only those agencies that have been recommended by their clients, and have a proven ability to deliver.

We’ve now got the ability to get noticed by big brands, which might otherwise not have looked in our direction. Getting on the RAR is a big deal, and one that’s sure to open doors for Juno Media.

Easy A

Every year as thousands of 15 and 16 year olds up and down the country sit their GCSE examinations, a heated debate occurs, about whether or not the standard of English has fallen. Many people believe that the GCSE exams have become too easy, and that children are not learning the essential skills they will need to use in the ‘real’ world.

Last year it was reported that 23.2% of pupils scored an A or A* in their GCSE English exams, a rise from the previous figure of 22.6% reported in 2010. It is thought by many that English exams are failing to challenge students, providing them with texts such as travel or sport newspaper articles and celebrity autobiographies to comment upon, instead of rich literature texts, which were traditionally a key part of the curriculum. Last year it was also reported that 70% of 16 year olds achieved at least five A*- C GCSE passes, with 58% of those children gaining 5 A*- C grades in their subjects, including both English language and maths. Although this could be seen as something to celebrate, many critics believe that the number has only risen year on year, since the introduction of the examinations in 1988, because each year the exams are ‘dumbed’ down.

Many employers, including supermarket giants Tesco, now ask potential job candidates to take tests in both maths and English before even being considered for a role. This comes after many businesses complained that both school leavers and graduates showed poor levels of education. It is thought that even those who passed their GCSEs with flying colours, still struggle with every day spellings. Many academics often blame the use of computers to write essays, as this provides the pupils with both a spell-check and grammar check, so there is no real need for them to learn the correct spellings.

Here at Juno Copywriting we could not possibly say whether exams have become too easy, but we do believe that an excellent grasp of English is essential in the world of business.

Juno the Judge

A few weeks back I attended the launch of a new project, supporting local creatives at Antenna Nottingham. The Amplify Award, created by Antenna, is a competition, offering support and expertise to new start up creative companies in the city, as well as providing them with a virtual base to grow their company. Juno Copywriting is a proactive company and wanted to get involved in such a great local event, so we offered our services. Low an behold, we were asked to be part of the Judging panel for the award! Something rather exciting and new to us.

We spent a day at the Antenna base alongside Sarah McNicol from Antenna and John(with beard) from Nottingham Creative. We sorted through 28 applications and thought long and hard about the needs of each applicant. There were some fabulous ideas in the pile and some that we hoped would actually happen.

The results were announced the following week at a gathering in Antenna. Lots of winners, lots of prizes and as part of the top prize, Juno Copywriting offered a package to tool the winner with writing skills, which would enable them to use copy in an effective way, for their ideas and business.

Off the back of an exciting and successful award ceremony, Juno Copywriting has been asked to present at one of the creative evenings that Antenna run for all creatives.  “Start it up” is a series of workshops run by professionals for new creative companies, so they can learn more about the ins and outs of running a business, how to target their audiences and all those much needed skills that many may not possess, or would like to learn more about.

We’re incredibly enthused by the creative industry and want to support the local creative community as much as we possibly can! Getting involved in Antenna is a fantastic privilege.

Juno Copywriting

TMC Distribution launch new site

Last month Juno copywriting were contacted by TMC Distribution, to write the content for their brand new site. Base in Leicester, TMC Distribution offer a range of transportation services and are UK leaders in Time Critical Delivery.

Juno Copywriting set about taking on board services and what the company would like to achieve from the website. Unlike some, the website for TMC is mainly a point of information for users and companies to read through, then contact then directly by phone. Despite this, the Juno team ensured that content was well written, understandable and most importantly, unique, which would set TMC apart from their competitors. We were able to take titles and phrases that are too overused by many competitor sites and create our own, still providing an understandable site, that will target customers, provide information and hopefully bring more business into TMC Distribution.

You can visit the all new TMC Distribution site here

Juno Copywring.

Juno Celebrates with Greetings Cards

Everyday is different in the Juno Office, which obviously makes our jobs rather interesting. Yesterday I was contacted by a company that had been referred to us by a freelancing site in the UK. The recommend us to the Canadian company, and after a rather exciting Skype call, we’ve got the job!

What will we be doing?

Writing the prose on and in birthday cards. It probably sounds rather random, but the team here is rather excited as it is another string to our bow, and gives us the chance to use those creative grey cells in a different way. We will be creating prose for a total of 90 cards to start with, for a range of categories including mother, father, boyfriend, mates and siblings. The range will include formal, conversational humours and spoof prose. Beyond that, providing a stream of new ideas to the Canadian Card Company.

The company that contacted Juno Copywriting, originally set out to produce business cards, but are now moving into the arena of personalised cards, using an app linked with Facebook, users can upload pictures of their friends and family to the cards, add their own touches and hey presto! Very much inline with companies like Moon Pig and Funky Pigeon.

The new range of cards will be launched in July/August to North America and the UK and Ireland.

It’s a real privilege to work on such projects, and to be recommended!

So, now we’ve got to put on our creative hats and think about how many different ways we can say the phrase “Happy Birthday”

Juno Copywriting.

Self Publishing

Its a  question that writers always tend to be asked, whether that is “have you written a book” or “you should write a book”. Well, thanks to the advancement of technology and devices such as Kindles and tablets, self publishing has never been easier.

Traditionally, writers and novelists would spend time sending their finished documents to publishers to have any chance of having a book written. As you can imagine thousands upon thousands of books are published in that manner every year, but now those figures have increase due to technology.

Another way of getting your written works onto the market, would be to pitch an idea to a publisher, who would give you a retainer and a deadline, to complete your book.

Today, you can avoid all those pitfalls by self publishing. Although, this doesn’t mean that your book will be purchased, and having a “digital” version of your book commands a lower price, so you have to take things like this into consideration.

Recently, a friend has self published another one of her works, based on a trip we took in 2004 to the Grampians of Scotland. It’s amazing to think that she started this project such a long time ago and now, finally has a book to show for it. Despite the time, she has already self published other works and books previous to this one. It just goes to show, with time and determination you can publish your own books. If you have a fantastic idea, or a book screaming to be written, take the self publishing route, its cheaper, quicker and your book could still be a hit. Who knows, it could also be published into a hard version and be on the shelves of all those popular book stores.

There is plenty of information and advice about self publishing online, but remember to make the most of your book, marketing is the key! Use those digital social sites and get the word out!

If you are interested in my friends book, you can purchase yourself a copy for kindle right here

Juno Copywriting

Is your brand Pinterest-ing?

As you may or may not know, here at Juno Copywriting we’re big fans of Pinterest, the latest social media trend that’s starting to turn heads. We’ve found it’s been fantastic for referrals, especially for our Euramedia project, as well as being a great way to spend that cheeky lunch break. However, how can businesses use Pinterest? After all, there’s more to it than pretty pictures.

A New Frontier

The main appeal of Pinterest is the huge collection of images that have been selected precisely because they’re beautiful, inspirational, funny or just plain awesome. If your business has some quality products, sharing them through Pinterest can open up a new customer base. Not only that, if you’ve got a unique point of view, interesting services or just a good sense of humour, you can get some real – and completely free – exposure.

Brand Exposure

Some brands have launched competitions via Pinterest to promote their products and services. One of our favourites is the bmi lottery, ran by the midlands airline and to give away free flights. From five ‘destinations’ pinboards, all you needed to do was repin up to six of thirty images, with one image being selected as the winner each week. This injected images that lead back to bmi into the Pinterest ether, giving them free exposure as well as sharing pictures of some great locations.

Unique Point of View

You can also build familiarity with your brand’s personality, ethos and the general feel you want to portray. You can post about news stories, events and projects that matter to you, as well as giving an insight into the day to day workings of your company. At Juno we love telling people what we get up to in our office, whether that’s eating soup or writing about exciting new companies.

All of this means you can boost your traffic, publicise your products, and give customers a personal insight into your business, helping to build a lasting relationship with a whole new base of customers. If you link Pinterest in with your Twitter and facebook campaigns, you can get maximum exposure.

Pinterest is looking to be the next essential addition to that social media arsenal.

Building bridges with Russia and the US

Juno Copywriting mentioned a while ago that we had gained a contract with a US company, helping to promote a Summit being held in Boston, MA in June. 4 weeks down the line, things are going well, the team is strong, and with only 44 days to the start of the summit, we’re on a mission to push this unique event.

Our duties including running Social Media Accounts for the UK, contacting big names and general promotion of the event.

Last week, the Juno team managed to get some great PR with the Drum. Although (as I’ve been asked how we got involved) a rather random project for a writing company, it has brought back all those things we enjoy, especially the challenges and speaking to other companies about this great opportunity.

As many know, Russia is a very affluent country with great opportunities, especially for those who are innovators and entrepreneurs in their fields. What Russia seems to suffer from is infrastructure. This is where companies from the UK and US step in, offering their expertise to create one of the most powerful media markets in the world.

It is very exciting, there are some great names already confirmed to speak to the event, such as Steve Wozniac- co-founder of Apple inc.

Fingers crossed the Juno Copywriting team will be heading to Boston for the conference and rubbing shoulders, not only with the leaders in technology, but sharing drinkings with the likes of Sarah Jessica Parker, Heidi Klum and Sharon Stone. Yes, its quite unbelievable, but I am proud that our team have shown that the UK are an important factor in creating successful businesses and industries.

So, 44 days left, a lot to do, many emails to send and lots of people to talk to.

Then there is a question of…”what do we wear to these things”… I’m probably getting a bit carried away. Nevertheless, it is an exciting and challenging project.

Juno Copywriting

Social Media Management

Juno Copywriting has a real bag of tricks and we like to pull out surprises for our clients, because we can expand our talents across an array of media platforms.

We’ve been running Social Media campaigns for our clients and seeing success.

EuraMedia Summit 2012 is one such client, we’ve been appointed the UK arm for this event and despite having US and Russian teams, we are all running our own social media sites, because, as you can guess, they are very different markets and on very different time scales. But this means ultimate coverage for this incredible event.

To link or not to link?

For some people, linking all of their sites together, to provide a constant stream of content, is a simple task and actually means you only really have to focus on one site. Some SMM believe that actually, you should speak to Twitter users very differently to those on Facebook, thinking about this, it rings true.

Twitter limits your characters, so you really have to think about what you are writing and tweets seem more “matter of fact”, whereas Facebook allows you to rant on in a conversational style.

Both are very effective and we have gained a steady stream of followers in a few days.

Quantity VS Quality.

Is is a numbers game? Well yes kind of, but don’t follow people just for the sake of it, follow interesting and relative people, then their followers in turn may come knocking at your door. Also, don’t plead with people to like your page, its not becoming, instead have something interesting to say, ask questions, get people engaged by asking their opinions, its the best way to get those much wanted followers.

Social media isn’t difficult, but if you are finding that time is limited to tweet and like, speak to Juno Copywriting, we’re more than happy to manage your social media.

Juno Copywriting

Supporting creative industries

I was lucky enough to spend some time in the creative hub for Nottingham yesterday. Antenna is a space that encourages those starting out and already working in the creative industries, to use the spaces and attend some interesting free events. There is a great heritage in this country of creative arts and industries which, since the recession hit, has had a boost because people are looking for career changes and also focusing their energies on things that they really like to do.

These hubs are fantastic and can be found in most cities, Creative Leicestershire boast a calender of events which will teach you everything from PR to networking skills. Creative Derbyshire tour their events across the country and have a great following. It is fantastic and inspiring to see these other industries and get a feel for what everyone does under the umbrella “Creative”. It’s also a refreshing change for someone like myself, to get out of the office and see what others are doing.

One of the best resources I found as a creative was the website Creative Boom. The brain child of Katy Cowan, Creative Boom showcases the most talented and incredible people across the UK. It hosts a directory, it showcases work, it offers hints and advice, and generally is a great site to visit and spend some time on. If you’re stuck for inspiration, make sure to visit Creative Boom.

I’ve found some incredible people on there from designers to artists, it really brings the UK’s creative community together.

Taking time out to see what other “artists” produce is a great break for the mind and soul, I feel really inspired and attack my work from a new angle.

Have a look in your local town or city and head for your nearest creative hub!

Juno Copywriting