Keystone Posts by Katherine Hesketh

Why trust must be the beating heart of community engagement

by Katherine Hesketh | Jul 8, 2025 | #KeystoneAtWork, Building Marketing Materials, Content Marketing, Developing Messaging, Engaging Communities

When did your landline last ring? Do you even still have one? According to data shared in 2024, 10 years ago 84% of British households had a landline. Now it’s less than half. Precise data is sketchy, but suggests that landline users are predominantly older and more vulnerable. For these people, more often than not, their landline is a lifeline. It provides connection to loved ones, a means of accessing healthcare, or summoning help in an emergency.

By the end of January 2027, traditional landlines – those using copper wires rather than digital technology – will be switched off. The implications of this “switch off” for older and more vulnerable people isn’t just an inconvenience or a disconnection, it’s a safety issue.

When Cambridgeshire County Council’s digital infrastructure team, Connecting Cambridgeshire, commissioned us to design and launch a local awareness campaign about the upcoming Digital Switchover, they knew our expertise in audience-first strategy and community engagement would be key.

Addressing the elephant in the room

Early on, we knew we were facing a couple of big challenges.

How do you talk about the Digital Switchover with an audience who are likely to experience worry, fear and confusion upon just hearing the word “digital”?

How do you reach vulnerable and older residents, more likely to be living alone, with limited mobility or low digital confidence, and make them aware of a country-wide infrastructural change, that (at the time) the government had shared no plans to promote nationally?

Using our tried and tested formula of a deep-dive workshop with the Connecting Cambridgeshire team, followed by an internal brainstorming and a tonne of creative thinking, we shaped, sculpted and refined our approach and delivered…

Get ready. Get digital. Stay connected.

Our campaign is laser-focused on the people most at risk of being left behind. Not just from their telecoms services, but from their communities and the people they rely on. We had to ensure that they didn’t just receive the messages, but they understood what to do, and felt supported and confident enough to take action.

Information postcards, doubling up as bookmarks, are available in every library in Peterborough and Cambridgeshire and offer practical advice.

If you want their attention, first you must have their trust

Finding the right location to deliver our messages was key. Recognising that trust is the beating heart of community engagement, our strategy was to lean on trusted community spaces, with libraries selected to act as a central hub. This enabled us to cast our campaign messages far and wide.

Posters placed in key community locations frequented by our target audience help to further spread the message

We have stocked the 59 libraries across Cambridgeshire and Peterborough with over 8,000 pieces of printed support materials, to help our key audience prepare for the Digital Switchover.

Securing advertising space on the back of four mobile libraries is taking our main campaign message “Is your landline ready?” to over 500 stops at villages and communities across the district.

Group photo of four people smiling together in front of a mobile library van featuring a large banner for the 'Get Ready, Go Digital, Stay Connected' campaign promoting the Digital Switchover. From left to right: Will Plant, Digital Inclusion Lead at Connecting Cambridgeshire; Darren Harte, Mobile Library Driver; Katherine Hesketh, Head of Communications at Keystone; and Chantal Palmer, Head of Creative at Keystone.

From left to right: Will Plant, Digital Inclusion Lead at Connecting Cambridgeshire; Darren Harte, Mobile Library Driver; Katherine Hesketh, Head of Communications at Keystone; and Chantal Palmer, Head of Creative at Keystone.

Build confidence, not just awareness

Raising awareness is only the first step of the campaign. To get to the overall goal of inspiring action – “Contact your phone provider and find out if and how the change affects you” we knew we needed a stepping stone – reassurance. We knew our main audience could feel daunted by rapid technological change and we also knew that misinformation was rife. Our messaging avoids jargon, focuses on empowerment and offers simple but practical support. Gentle encouragement to ask for help from a friend, family or neighbour highlights where support can be gained from trusted sources.

Local organisations have also been equipped with the resources to share the campaign materials within their own networks, again, offering delivery of our campaign messages from a trusted source.

Thanks to a strong visual identity led by our in-house Head of Creative, as well as simple messaging and a community-first approach curated by Keystone’s Head of Communications, we’re helping more people across Cambridgeshire feel ready, confident, and connected for the imminent digital switchover.

How do you know when you’ve got it right?

Recognising that traditional print media is still valued by our core audience, we reached out to over 100 community publications and asked them to include a story about “Get ready. Get digital. Stay connected”. We knew we’d hit the mark with the whole campaign when we received this reply from one editor:

“I think it’s a really important subject, which is of importance and concern to many of our readers”.

Our #1 advice if you’re planning a community engagement campaign?

Craft empathetic messages that will connect with your audience emotionally and deliver them in trusted places.

Do you know someone at risk of being left behind?

Based in Cambridgeshire and want to help your community feel confident and connected too? Ask for our Get ready. Get digital. Stay connected Stakeholder toolkit.

Reeling them in and making them feel something: How storytelling needs to be part of ALL your marketing campaigns

by Katherine Hesketh | May 12, 2025 | #KeystoneAtWork, Building Marketing Materials, Developing Messaging, Engaging Communities

Turning stats into stories: How we helped the Environment Agency engage anglers through creative reporting

Annual Reports.

What’s the first thing that pops into your head? Data? Charts? An inspiring one-pager that offers a “view from the top”? Yawn…

Let’s face it, while there are plenty of businesses bucking the trend, as a piece of marketing collateral, annual reports do still carry a reputation of being a bit dry.

Four years ago, we were asked by the Environment Agency if we could help make their Fisheries Annual Report a bit more interesting. The brief came with some good headlines.

Every penny from fishing licence sales gets reinvested back into the sport.
Anglers legally need a licence to fish but in doing so, they are contributing to a whole raft of projects that improves fishing for everyone.
The benefits of this reinvestment are broad and rooted in strong principles of sustainability.

But for many anglers, a licence is just a necessity. So here was the challenge:

How can we turn this functional transaction into something more emotional that could potentially increase retention, inform and inspire, and ultimately help anglers feel a bit of pride?

We knew a data-dump wouldn’t cut it. Anglers didn’t want corporate speak – they wanted connection.

So we turned to storytelling.

Why? Because storytelling is how humans make sense of the world. It’s how we learn, remember, and crucially – care. And that’s where marketing magic comes in. We hooked anglers into the storied that we knew they would resonate with.

For example… in 2023/24 over £22.5 million was raised from licence income. But rather than just stating that, we showed the impact. Nearly 480,000 fish were restocked, rivers revitalised, habitats restored, young anglers catching their first fish. Suddenly, it’s not just a massive number – it’s a narrative.

Casting a wider net: Attention and Emotion

Storytelling got us so far. But let’s dive deeper into the psychology.

One of the neuromarketing principles we love is attention – that elusive, expensive resource everyone’s fighting for. People don’t read reports; they skim, scroll, and skip. So we designed content that stood out. Vibrant visuals, digestible layouts, and emotional cues helped to direct the reader’s attention exactly where we wanted it.

We supplied our client not just with a downloadable pdf of the full report, but bite-size ready-to-use social media graphics, ready-made for sharing with the data sliced and diced for easy digestion.

We also tapped into emotion. We wanted the readers to feel something. Pride in how they were supporting conservation. Joy in seeing young people take up angling. Even a bit of outrage at environmental damage, followed by hope when the narrative showed how the Environment Agency was able to respond.

This emotional engagement is key because we know that people’s behaviour isn’t based on logic alone. Emotions move us. And that’s exactly what we wanted – not just awareness, but affinity.

A wonder-fin project collaboration

We enjoyed a wonder-fin collaboration on this project. Keystone crafted the messages and told the stories, while Slade Design created the striking visuals. We knew that their team’s design prowess would help bring our words to life, in a completely unique and powerful way. Three consecutive editions of the Fisheries Annual Report have been produced since that initial brief. We must be doing something right!

A word from our client…

Keystone Marketing provided us an excellent service in helping produce our Fisheries Annual Report. They completed the works efficiently and with care and attention. And ahead of schedule!
Tom Sherwood, Senior Advisor, Environment Agency

Can we help you reel in your audience?

If you’re a brand or public body with a story to tell — especially one that risks being overlooked in a sea of content — we’d love to help you reel in your audience. Whether it’s through storytelling, neuromarketing insights, or just a boatload of good ideas, we can help you unearth that magic hook.

Drop us a line. We promise we don’t bite, but we do love a good pun…

Using storytelling techniques to showcase local business successes

by Katherine Hesketh | Nov 12, 2024 | #KeystoneAtWork, Case Study, Content Marketing, Engaging Communities

As a specialist in community engagement principles and approaches, we know how powerful storytelling can be – not just to tell the tale itself, but to build up deep connections and establish pride too. We have taken this approach to content writing in some recent work with our friends at Invest in Huntingdonshire (IIH) – the economic development arm of Huntingdonshire District Council.

A key focus for the team is to support local businesses with opportunities for growth and development within the District. But in most cases, this behind-the-scenes focus and incredible impact was not shared more widely.

Invest in Huntingdonshire wanted to shine a light on the incredible breadth and impact made by local businesses, predominately as inspiration for businesses based across the district as a whole,but also to showcase how IIH might also be able to help others.

Over the last 12 months, we’ve worked closely with the IIH team, and the businesses they support, to build case study articles and a social media campaign that proactively and positively tells these incredible business stories.

Made in Huntingdonshire: What’s your story?

Eight businesses from a broad range of sectors and locations were featured in the “Made in Huntingdonshire” campaign.

Twisters Gymnastics Club: From mobile classes to a thriving community hub

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Glebe Farm: Currently the only farm in the UK growing and processing gluten-free oats into porridge flakes, oat flour and their award-winning oat drink range, PureOaty

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East Anglia Energy Academy: Recently established, in partnership with Reed Environment, a new centre in St Ives for delivering their training initiatives

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AC Composites: Innovation and Growth in Advanced Manufacturing

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T H Branson & Son – Cowpasture Farm: A beacon of sustainable farming practices and social regeneration.

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Paragraf: Today, the only company in the world with the capability of mass-producing graphene-based electronic devices using standard semi-conductors processes.

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ACE Technology: Proudly carrying the legacy of composite manufacturing in Huntingdonshire

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Cambridge Support: A multi-award winning IT Services company based in St Neots

The next phase of our storytelling campaign will see us work closely with businesses that have been accepted as recipients of Rural Prosperity Grants. In one-to-one conversations with 10 businesses, we’ll find out how each business plans to utilise the funding and discover the likely impact it will make – before sharing the stories more widely through IIH’s digital channels.

HDC Showcase: Pride In Place event, Thursday 14 November 2024

This example of our work will be featured at the HDC Showcase: Pride in Place event on the 14th November, where Keystone is proud to be exhibiting. The showcase event is designed to celebrate the District’s diversity of place and bustling visitor economy, and also highlight what Huntingdonshire can offer to support growth and encourage new investment opportunities. Partners from across the country will also discuss expert insight on how to further boost the District’s offering through a variety of sessions. We’re excited to be part of the event and to have a stand in the “Farmer’s Market” style stall area, designed to showcase some of the outstanding businesses and destinations that Huntingdonshire has to offer. Do come and say hello if you’re attending the event, we’d love to tell you more about our work!

Effective communication: 7 practical things you can do to win over your stakeholders

by Katherine Hesketh | Jan 26, 2024 | #KeystoneAtWork, Engaging Communities

It takes collaboration to successfully complete any community project so ensuring that everyone who is impacted, either positively or negatively, is engaged throughout the lifespan of the work is so important. Based on our extensive experience of communicating with stakeholders for both community and commercial projects, here is our guide to delivering effective stakeholder communications.

1. Create a stakeholder map and carefully consider how you will engage with each individual /group.

A simple but essential exercise at the start of any project is to create a list of all of your stakeholders. Not sure who to include on the list? Just think about everyone likely to have an interest in your project’s progress. Decide how you will communicate with them and how frequently they will want to hear from you. Keep in mind that while email updates can be an efficient way for you to share news with groups of people, some stakeholders might require a 121 relationship, nurtured through face-to-face contact.

TOP TIP: Create a communication plan that doesn’t just broadcast your project’s news, but ensures that each stakeholder feels seen and heard.

Define and categorise your stakeholder audience too – community stakeholders differ from those working in a business environment. For example, stakeholders in a commercial setting tend to understand the business rationale and know what activity is expected from them. Conversely, stakeholders for a community project have often volunteered their time for many years to make an impact – and they are likely to feel very passionate about it.

TOP TIP: Be sensitive to the history of a project – take time to understand what has happened “before your time” and acknowledge this when you first reach out to your stakeholders.

Members of the public are often considered a stakeholder within community projects, especially if the outcome impacts them personally. Engagement might involve asking members of the public to give their time to share opinions about a community action free-of-charge, so be aware of this, recognise it and show your appreciation for their invovement in your approach.

TOP TIP: Offering a small incentive is a good way to initiate engagement with the general public.

2. Create stakeholder toolkits

Need your stakeholders to cascade some information for you? Creating a stakeholder toolkit will make things easy for you and them! Include ready–to-go email content, talking points, images and direct links to reshare posts from social channels. Both you and your stakeholders will have confidence that information and news about the project are shared with consistency – and asking your stakeholders to share your message directly with their audiences is more likely to gain that wider engageemnt too.

TOP TIP: Avoid overloading your stakeholders with too much information in one go. Rather than sharing the whole toolkit, break it down into bitesize tasks. For example, one week provide your stakeholders with one LinkedIn post for them to copy, paste and publish, the next week, offer an article for their newsletter.

3. Bring people together

We’ve found that stakeholders in community projects or those that bring in leads from multiple business departments rarely work together on a regular basis, so we often kick-start a project by inviting all of the key stakeholders to a face-to-face meeting. It creates an opportunity for disparate stakeholders to meet each other, for colleagues to reconnect and more often than not, brings a sense of excitement and buy-in at the start of the project!

TOP TIP: Use an independent person to facilitate this meeting – stakeholders will feel they can share information and opinions in a safe place, knowing that this will not impact their day-to-day work.

4. Work hard to make stakeholders an integral part of the project

When people are listened to, they are more likely to take ownership in making the project a success. Consider workshops, small meetings, and even informal chats over coffee. Once engaged, look for continuing ways to show that you value the stakeholder input.

TOP TIP: For one of our projects, we invited stakeholders on-site and filmed them sharing their opinions about the value of the work being done. They felt heard, played a part in the story and we had a great piece of content that we could share more widely.

5. Don’t take it personally

Spending time writing the perfect piece of communication but not hearing back from your stakeholders might leave you feeling discouraged – but don’t be! There are a lot of factors at play here and it’s unlikely you’re one of them. People rarely respond the first time – sometimes the timing is wrong, or maybe the message doesn’t resonate, or more likely, they just didn’t read or see it!

TOP TIP: It’s often said that a message needs to be seen 7 times before action is taken, so don’t be afraid to repeat your information across multiple channels. Better to have an over-informed stakeholder than an under-informed one! And don’t always rely on email – pick up the phone for a chat, pop and see them or arrange a catch up virtually.

6. Demonstrate your experience

From day one of the project, give your stakeholders confidence in you by showing that everything you do is backed up by a strategy and project plan. At the end of the project, when you review how things went always be transparent about what worked well and where there are opportunities to do things differently.

TOP TIP: When you share updates, prove that you are sticking to the plan and be proud to talk about what you have achieved. Stakeholders will respond well to this show of leadership.

7. Think about the longer-term

Going the extra mile, being kind and helping people where you can, and generally making a great impression on stakeholders will not only help you with a project, it can open doors for the future. Maybe it will ensure you have support for your next project, or help you to secure your next opportunity… you never know when you will meet the stakeholders again.

TOP TIP: We all want to feel appreciated – so try to find a way of making every stakeholder feel like this. Don’t just generically thank them for their time. Be specific and make it personal.

With considerable stakeholder engagement under our belt, we have lots of other hints and tips that we would be happy to share with you. Just give us a call!

Keystone to tell the story of a £3m investment in Hinchingbrooke Country Park

by Katherine Hesketh | Oct 18, 2022 | #KeystoneAtWork, Building Marketing Materials, Content Marketing, Developing Messaging, Engaging Communities, Place Marketing

Earlier this year, Keystone was chosen to lead communications for an exciting local project that will see a £3 million investment made in Hinchingbrooke Country Park. With an emphasis on community engagement, our approach will include the development of a social media campaign and the creation of a promotional film.

Led by Huntingdonshire District Council (HDC), formal plans for the proposed developments are currently being shared in a public exhibition. If planning permission is granted, the construction work is expected to begin in early 2023. The changes to the park will include:

a new car park,
upgraded footpaths,
and new café located at the countryside centre.

As a precursor to the main works, this summer saw four new play areas installed in the park along with specialist, fully-accessible play equipment.

Hinchingbrooke Country Park new play areas, 2022

Covering 150 acres, Hinchingbrooke Country Park is a much-loved open space in Cambridgeshire that receives large numbers of visitors throughout the year. Throughout the 18 month project, Keystone will be responsible for a dedicated campaign designed to communicate progress of the work to the public, stakeholders and partners. Local interest is expected to be high, so a clear focus will be on providing timely and high impact social media messages that inform and inspire.

While most activity will be delivered from early 2023 once construction begins, the building of campaign assets has already got underway; with Keystone working to create a unique brand identity for the project and undertaking filming for the promotional video that will tell the story of HDC’s investment in the park.

This work was awarded to Keystone following a competitive tender process, led by Huntingdonshire District Council. It is the fourth high profile project the team will deliver for the district council in the last two years, following on from the Reopening Huntingdonshire and Think Local campaigns at the height of Covid, as well as the Godmanchester Mill Steps community engagement project which came to an end earlier this year.

Community engagement campaigns continue to be a core skill for the team at Keystone. During the pitch process for this latest project, our team drew upon a broad range of experience built from wider campaigns delivered for St Neots and Huntingdon Town Councils, as well as regional membership body Cambridgeshire ACRE.