Challenge
NW Security Group is an old client which Miles Clayton’s agency Agility PR had worked with for 6 years from 2011-2017. After an internal long-term planning exercise in the summer of 2020, it recontacted Miles Clayton to help add bite, authority and increased relevance to its external communications.
As an organisation with the UK’s largest online store of IP video cameras and equipment, it understood the importance of basing any organic SEO strategy on the regular publication of fresh, dynamic, and engaging content which also helped in positioning it as an expert security technology company.
Solutions
Following an in-depth consultation during the summer of 2020, Miles Clayton recommended a comprehensive piece of market research to reach senior video security system decision-makers employed by medium and large-sized businesses right across England. Those responding needed to have an existing CCTV or IP video security system in use.
The idea was to probe the status of their video security systems; their plans to upgrade and improve these systems and propensity to consider cloud-based video surveillance as a service (VSaaS) offerings which were beginning to gain market penetration.
Agility PR partnered with the excellent market research agency Opinium to assure a representative response from a strong mix of Operations, IT, FM and Security Department senior decision-makers.
Agility PR worked with the managing director of NW Security Frank Crouwel, to define a mix of insights which we knew would be of interest to the range of key audiences invited to answer the survey. Agility PR then wrote 4 different press releases covering these key focus areas from the rise of ‘Cloud CCTV’, to the increase of use of systems for remote operational monitoring and management; to the clear evidence of the lack of optimisation of existing CCTV systems. Each core theme that was drawn out was also supported by an opinion piece which Agility PR wrote and gained publication for in relevant titles.
Once this content and media placement work was completed, Agility PR went on to work with NW Security’s marketing team to draft and complete the design of a 36-page report titled Preparing for the Next Generation of CCTV Systems, which was published and promoted via the professional security media in March 2021.
Results
During the news creation and media dissemination phase between October 2020 and January 2021 each press release generated an average of over 3 pieces of quality news coverage. Each article was placed in key publications at least once and sometimes twice. Total coverage for this campaign, including from the promotion of the full Management Report of findings in March 2021, exceeded 20 during the 8-month campaign. The Report has been downloaded more than 100 times. The content that the campaign generated, helped improve Time on Site and improved SEO scores on both NW Security’s core integration business site as well as its online web shop’s blog section at www.networkwebcams.co.uk.
Following the success of this first market research-led thought leadership campaign, NW Security has committed to a second thought leadership campaign, this time focusing on use of video analytics in existing systems.
Frank Crouwel explains:
“Miles Clayton at Agility PR is a great comms partner for us. Their market research-led thought leadership campaigning approach gives us the best of both worlds:
- We are able to get a better understanding of the issues which the market we are targeting is wrestling with – pinpointing the vulnerabilities which our skills and services can address. And…
- The insights we gather through the resulting high quality market research are packaged intelligently and communicated clearly via news releases and articles and management.
It’s about generating highly targeted media coverage and securing deeper engagement with our prospects. These sorts of campaigns can work to educate the market and engage the next tranche of prospects.”
Frank Crouwel, Managing Director, NW Security Group
