Category: Radix News

How many Radix employees does it take to plant a tree?

Posted on by Claire Goodfellow

Since partnering with Plant One last summer, we’ve pledged money for 223 trees to be planted  to help protect our local ecosystem here in Cornwall. But while we know funding trees is fantastic, we also wanted to get hands on, and actually plant them.

So for one windy day in December, a group of us swapped our keyboards for shovels and got involved at a Plant One event just across the river from our offices, at Tregew Barn in Flushing.

How to plant a tree

Eleven of us arrived at 9.30am to face a muddy field – I mean, this is Cornwall after all. But apparently not all of us had thought this far ahead. And so, wearing ten pairs of boots and one pair of converse, we made our way through the mud to a steep hill waiting to be filled with trees.

Before we could start planting, we needed a lesson in how actually to plant a tree.

The planting process itself was definitely simpler than I was expecting. Make a slit in the ground with the shovel, put the sapling in, firm the soil, place a protective tube over it, and stake. But unsurprisingly it became less simple once we started. You’d think the wet ground would make it easier to dig. Nope.

The tricky part was finding a spot of ground soft enough to push the shovel in. It was tempting to just try to force it rather than searching for a more amenable spot but, after a couple of battles between shovel and ground and a slight bend forming in the metal, it was clear the shovel would usually lose.

Despite the hard ground, we soon found our rhythm and began to make steady progress. The site had been divided into three and soon enough we had finished the first third and were ready for a coffee break. By the time we had finished the second we were ready for lunch. Most of the volunteers were ready to call it a day at that point, too (and I don’t blame them.) But Team Radix ploughed on, determined to complete the site.

If you build it, they will come

This habitat – ancient woodland bordering the tidal river – is rare and vital for wildlife. The aim for the day’s work was increase the cover of woodland next to the river by a quarter. And together with employees from St Austell Printing Company and Scence Skincare, alongside 15 members of the public, we planted 497 trees over the course of the day.

No wonder our arms were still aching three days later.

To mimic the woodland that we were extending, we planted Cornish and English Oak, Holly, Elderberry, Hawthorn, and Rowan trees. And added Wild Cherry and Grey Willow to improve the biodiversity and resilience of the habitat.

Hopefully in 20 years’ time we’ll be able to go back and visit a growing woodland. The expert tree planters at Plant One checked our efforts, so there shouldn’t be too many casualties despite the Cornish weather.

What did we make of our first tree planting day

Personally, I can say that I really enjoyed taking a day out of the office to plant some trees and do some lasting good. I can’t wait to do it again once we’ve pledged even more trees to plant. But what did everyone else think?

Lisa says: “It was a really great day, not only being outdoors in the fresh air planting trees that will be there for future generations, but also to hang out with and have fun with the Radix team – many of whom I hadn’t seen in person since the start of the pandemic. It’s surprising how many trees you can plant in such a short amount of time too.”

“Tree planting wasn’t quite what I expected,” Ben P adds. “But then again, I rocked up in a tattered old pair of Converse and still managed to have a really good time. I recommend planting trees.”

And Jordan says: “It felt great to be active and outdoors and to feel like we were all contributing to a great cause. As someone who rarely gets into the office these days, it was brilliant to be involved in something like that with my friends and colleagues.”

And it’s not just Radix who had a great day, our fellow planters from other Cornish businesses did too.

Bryony Simpson, Digital Print & Design Assistant at St Austell Printing company says: “This was my first trip out with my new team at St Austell Printing Company and it was a pleasure to be included in such an inspiring event – working as a team to create a better future together.”

Beth Mayman, Operations Manager at St Austel Printing Company, agrees: “Tree planting seems like such a simple thing to do, but to plant trees on this scale actually takes a huge amount of planning, with a good dose of expertise, energy and enthusiasm – which the Plant One team have in bucket loads! It was a rewarding day spent with a great bunch of people, coming together to make a difference. Count us in next time!”

So how many Radix employees does it take to plant a tree?

Apparently, five. (Plus another six to keep the photographer busy!)

Tree planting is a team effort

Webinar: 5 terrifying risks you should definitely take with your B2B content

Posted on by The Radix Team

Five terrifying risks you should definitely take with your B2B content

Here’s a sad fact: behind every piece of bland, lifeless, me-too B2B content, there’s a marketer.

A marketer who wanted to do something different. Who had a better, bolder idea, but had it rejected – or shelved it because they’d never get their stakeholders to agree. Who’s frustrated, because they weren’t allowed to take a risk.

And that’s why the internet is full of  bullshit like “experience our end-to-end digital solution” and “in today’s fast-moving digital world…”

Standout content necessarily involves an element of risk – otherwise it wouldn’t stand out. But the right risk, the right way, at the right time. And that’s what our first ever webinar is about.

Spoiler alert: I’m NOT going to tell you to be braver. But I am going to share five ways you can take a sensible, calculated risk that will set your content apart. Importantly, I’ll also talk about how you can get your clients and stakeholders on board.

After the presentation, we’ll have plenty of time for questions and answers, to swap nuggets of best practice, and to tell stories from the B2B content trenches.

If you write, create or specify B2B content, I solemnly swear it will be a valuable and thought-provoking use of your time.

Hope to see you there.

David

Note: This webinar has now ended. Thanks to all who took part.

We’re a B2B copywriting agency. So why are we planting trees?

Posted on by The Radix Team

We’ve been writing B2B copy against the stunning backdrop of Cornwall for more than 13 years – so, we thought it’s about time we start giving back to our environment. And we’re happy to be doing it with our new partner, Plant One.

Logo: Plant One Certified Partner. The words form a green circle, around a number one styled to look like a tree with fresh leaves. It's also a hyperlink to the Plant One website.Plant One is a registered Community Interest Company here in Cornwall,  that plants trees in the ground to benefit the local area, the region, and the world. It partners with small businesses and entrepreneurs, matching them with landowners to help make a positive impact on the environments where they work.

At Radix, we’re pledging trees (one for each member of our team) every time we reach a company target; the better we do, the more we’re able to help. And later in the year, we’re looking forward to visiting the site ourselves, to plant the trees we’ve pledged and see the impact we’ve made.

Our Creative Director and company co-owner, David McGuire, offered his perspective on why the scheme makes such good sense for the company:

“There’s no point in having a successful business if it comes at the expense of the world. As owners of Radix, we’re attracted to the ideas that help us give back and make a positive difference as we grow – so Plant One is perfect.”

So far, we’ve pledged 76 trees in our first quarter with Plant One, and that number is growing fast.

A person in jeans and boots, planting a sapling tree in a woodland.David added: “It feels really good to be doing something so tangible to fight climate change while also improving our local environment. It’s amazing to have such a stake in the future – we’re planting something that might grow for hundreds of years and will hopefully benefit many generations to come.”

Want to partner with Plant One?

If you run a business, and you like this idea, we warmly encourage you to copy us. Plant One is always searching for new small business partners that want to give back to the environment. Explore the website and get in touch to find out how you can get involved.

Want to work with Radix?

If you might be interested in joining the Radix team – and making a difference of your own – have a look at our careers page. We’re always looking for talented writers and account managers, and this is just one of the initiatives we’ve got planned to make sure that when we succeed, our community does too.

Radix employees have taken over the company

Posted on by The Radix Team

On Friday 21st December, we signed papers to set up a new Employee Ownership Trust (EOT), which now owns 100% of our shares. 

The EOT will hold the shares for the benefit of all our employees and, as Radix’s sole owner, gives our team a powerful say in the company’s strategic direction. It can also pay staff bonuses based on profits.

Our directors Sophie Reynolds and David McGuire will stay responsible for running the business day to day.

Sophie said: “As Radix continued to grow, it became obvious that our hardworking people deserved to benefit more directly from their success. We’re one team, and this new structure feels like a good reflection of that. Now we’re ready for the next step of the journey.”

Sophie and David will be joined on the board of the new trustee company by two elected employees, Nick Prescott and Ben Clarke. SouthWestFD regional director and long-time Radix advisor Jeremy Kirk completes the board.

Employee trustee director Ben Clarke said: “We’ve always known that Radix values our perspectives as employees, but with the creation of the trust, it really feels like we have an even greater stake in the company’s direction and success. Nick and I are excited to be representing the rest of the team.”

Radix would like to thank Murrell Associates for their advice, good humour, and sheer stamina in preparing all the many documents we needed. Lang Bennetts also advised on the deal.

If you’re interested in joining a company like this, we’d be delighted to hear from you. Take a look at our careers page.

Welcome to the Radix Copycast – a copywriting podcast for B2B technology marketers

Posted on by The Radix Team
Emily recording the Radix copycast
Emily at the controls in the Radix ‘podcasting studio’

This week we unveil the Radix Copycast – a new podcast exploring trends and issues in B2B technology marketing through a copywriting lens.

Direct download available here (right click and “Save As”). Or listen in the player at the top of the page.

In this first episode, Emily and Fiona discuss email marketing and B2B video marketing.

With 36% of emails now being accessed through mobile devices, what needs to change in email copywriting? What sort of subject line works best? And how can copywriters get to know which tactics work, and which don’t?

We finish with a look at the rise of video in B2B. It’s a relatively expensive medium, so how can content marketers create videos that make the right impact on the audience – and how can the script help with that?

Here are links to some of the things we talk about in the podcast:

Hope you enjoy it, and look out for future episodes, when we’ll be talking about whether it’s OK to use jargon in tech copy, and what Google’s recent algorithm updates mean for online copywriters. We may even have a guest expert or two!

Music by Industrial and Marine.

Radix Copycast episode 2 – the jargon conundrum and making boring things interesting

Posted on by The Radix Team

Welcome to the latest Radix Copycast – a podcast exploring the trends and issues in B2B technology marketing through a copywriting lens.

Fiona, David and Emily in our “podcast studio”.

Emily and Fiona are joined by David McGuire of Lungfish to discuss two topics that B2B technology copywriters often wrangle with: how much (if any) jargon to use, and how to make a seemingly dull topic interesting enough to excite and inspire the audience.

On jargon, George Orwell once wrote:

“Never use a foreign phrase, a scientific word or a jargon word if you can think of an everyday English equivalent.”

from: Politics and the English Language

Lots of people will tell you to avoid jargon in marketing copy. But is it really a good idea to cut it out altogether? And if not, how can copywriters find the right balance between demonstrating technical knowledge and keeping content approachable?

In the second half of the episode we look at how writers can make boring topics interesting. David is certain that “nothing worth saying is innately boring” – but how do you find the angle or approach that will bring an apparently dull subject to life?

Download the episode here (right-click and “save as” to download). Or listen in the player at the top of the page.

You can subscribe to the podcast on iTunes here.

Music by Industrial and Marine.

Radix Copycast episode 3 – getting to grips with storytelling in B2B

Posted on by The Radix Team

Telling stories is a hot topic in B2B marketing, as evidenced by recent articles covering transmedia storytelling and brand storytelling, among many others. But with so many different techniques and approaches being discussed, we wanted to take a closer look at what storytelling actually is, and how B2B marketers can use it to best effect.

Emily and Fiona are joined by James Henry*, a television scriptwriter with titles like Green Wing, Shaun the Sheep and Bob the Builder under his belt, and several comedy and drama projects currently in development with the BBC and independent producers.

We believe marketers can learn a great deal from professional storytellers like James. Listen to this episode and find out:

  • The difference between a story and a series of events
  • What makes an engaging story
  • How the three-act structure works in business
  • The importance of a “relatable character”
  • Why brand storytelling is not customer friendly
  • How companies can use the seven basic plots to create stories about their customers (like this video from AtTask)
  • … and more

Download the episode here (right-click and “save as” to download). Or listen in the player at the top of the page.

You can subscribe to the podcast on iTunes here.

Music by Industrial and Marine.

* Disclosure: James is Fiona’s husband, podcast relationship-spotters.

Radix Copycast episode 4 – how to create better B2B case studies

Posted on by The Radix Team

They are the ‘bread and butter’ of enterprise technology marketing, with 78% of business to business marketers citing them as the most effective format for generating leads.

But if that’s the case, why do so many customer case studies follow the same dry, stale format?

In this episode, Fiona and I discuss how copywriters and marketers can work together to make case studies more engaging – and even more effective as lead-generation tools.

Points covered include:

  • What a typical B2B case study looks like today
  • How to make case studies more engaging
  • The difference between ‘bread and butter’ case studies and ‘superstar’ case studies
  • Why you may need to interview more than one person
  • Techniques you can borrow from journalism

Polishing your interviewing technique

For every good case study writer, the interview is a crucial part of the process. We share tips for getting more value from interviews, including what kind of questions to ask, when to go off-topic, and how to overcome language and knowledge barriers.

(And somehow, we end up wondering if virtual presence robots might be the answer to all our case study interview problems.)

Download the episode here (right-click and “save as” to download). Or listen in the player at the top of the page.

You can subscribe to the podcast on iTunes here.
Music by Industrial and Marine.

We’re B2B copywriters – so why are we shortlisted for Exporter of the Year?

Posted on by The Radix Team

We’re delighted to announce that we’ve been nominated for Exporter of the Year in the 2022 Cornwall Business Awards.

Yes, you did read that right. We’re a B2B technology copywriting company who are one of the top three exporters in Cornwall – alongside Mucky Nutz and Feritech Global. (We’re also up for the People’s Choice Award, a category in which all finalists are entered, and where the general public can vote for their favourite).

But “what exactly do you export?” you might find yourself asking. And it’s a fair question.

Read on to get the answer, the story of how we came to be an international exporter, and all the details of the competition.

We export Cornwall’s knowledge and skills

We may not export a physical product, but we still play a role in selling Cornish skills and expertise to technology companies all over the world. We work in a very specific market, where we’ve earned a reputation among the best in the world by writing for leading technology companies – including seven of the top ten software companies globally.

To us, it’s Cornwall’s knowledge economy in action. We invest in local people and export their expertise worldwide – in the form of ebooks and blog posts, web pages and video scrips, and proactive project management. We export skills and ideas, rather than tangible, crated goods.

Our specialised, experienced writers and excellent account managers mean we’re an easy, consistent way to get reliably well-written marketing content that customers actually want to read. And because of this, once we’ve started working with a brand, that relationship tends to flourish and grow.

We can only do this because we have an active, loyal, and engaged team – who stay with us long enough to develop those rare specialist skills. To support this, we recently became 100% employee-owned.

In the past, our team was focused on serving clients within the UK. But over time we’ve expanded our team and our remit to serve clients around the world.

Here’s where it started: our deliberate choice to go global

In 2015, we saw a chance to diversify our client base and have since taken deliberate action to increase our international reach.

We write for worldwide audiences daily, so transitioning over to more client work from overseas was natural due to our in-depth understanding of global markets and cultures.

While our expertise is writing in UK English, we regularly write in US English and also offer translation services, meaning we’re at the centre of multinational marketing campaigns and can write for international clients easily.

We’re also intentionally developing our existing client relationships by building high levels of knowledge about their ideas and culture. In doing so, we can deliver localised, high-quality copy that’s specific to their needs and messaging, while establishing ourselves as an accessible extension of our client’s teams.

Talking B2B copy with marketers 11,426 miles away

As well as expanding our international client base, we’ve also hosted guests on our podcast from as far as Denmark, Malta, Chicago, Australia and New Zealand – building our reputation among international networks of marketers.

Our environmental policy details our decision not to fly. However, the worldwide move to remote working has improved acceptance for digital meetings, and enabled us to prove we can build a great rapport at a distance. Like many organisations, we’ve adopted digital communication tools and have become more familiar to our clients than ever because we’re meeting them face to face, if not in person.

Our working ethos provides flexibility in working hours for both writers and account managers, helping with staggered time zones and making it easier to factor in out-of-hours calls.

“With modern, digital tools, anyone can have a client base that’s all over the world,” says David McGuire, Creative Director at Radix Communications. “It doesn’t matter where you are, it just matters how good you are.”

On the podium with good company

As a finalist for Exporter of the Year, we made a last pitch to win during the Showdown Day, held on June 17th,  and the winner will be announced at a grand awards dinner at St. Mellion Estate on June 30th.

Whether we win or not, we’re delighted to be a B2B technology copywriting company shortlisted for Exporter of the Year. We hope we’ve shown that you can be a world leader in your field and serve an international client base – no matter where you are.

Have your say in the People’s Choice Award

As well as a finalist for Exporter of the Year, we’re also up for the People’s Choice Award. But it won’t be decided by the judges, it’s up to you. Every member of the public has a chance to vote for their favourite of all the finalists – right up until the night of the awards. You can cast your vote now.