Lightbulb Media

We turn businesses into brands by creating scroll-stopping ads, content & copy, and then putting it directly in front of the people that matter.

If you’re tired of having smoke blown up your arse and you fancy working with a bunch of loud, honest, but extremely talented Northern creatives then give us a shout.

Benchmark Leads

Cheshire-based digital marketing and lead generation agency helping businesses expand their online presence and generate new clients via social media management, bespoke web design and targeted digital advertising techniques.

Head Of Digital

Dive Digital

Dive Digital helps businesses to grow online via comprehensive online advertising packages, expert advice and bespoke marketing solutions housed under our three main arenas: Creative, Social and Strategy. 
**Sold. (Acquisition by Benchmark Leads Feb 2017)

Owner

EPR Nutrition

As Communications Director, I worked with a small team to create and introduce a new and innovative nutrition brand to the marketplace in partnership with Shaun T, a US-based fitness celebrity, famed for the INSANITY workout amongst other worldwide crazes. 

From the inception of the brand itself, I worked towards planning and implementing the logistics, PR, marketing and creative strategy for the full launch weekend across 3 separate venues in the UK. The pinnacle of these events was a live workout with Shaun T for 850+ fitness fans in Manchester on the 27/02/16 (highlights of which can be seen below).

Having full control over all social media platforms, web and blog content allowed me to use my marketing skills and experience in the fitness industry to ensure maximum customer base growth, engagement and retention. I then transformed this growth into sales revenue which increased the maximum profit potential for the business at very little cost.

Communications Director

Loughborough University

During my time on my Hall Committee, my role was to organise, promote and market the University's wide variety of charity events to both my own Hall and the wider student community.This involved everything from bucket collecting in various cities, to climbing Mt. Kilimanjaro and Arctic Dog Sledding. During my year as Rag Rep, the University raised over £1,000,000 for a selection of great charities.

Rag Rep

PSCA International

I was originally hired in Delegate Acquisition with a task to ensure maximum attendance at various government reform conferences held at the Barbican in London. After two months of consistently surpassing targets I was promoted to Marketing Executive.

This promotion meant I was given my own personal event to manage, giving me full responsibility for the attendance and success of this conference. My role involved utilising my telecommunications and e-marketing skills in order to pitch the events to both public and private sector individuals in the relevant areas, and transfer these into sales of high-priced event tickets.

This was a basic + commission role and I thoroughly enjoyed having the freedom of uncapped earning potential, which solidified my love of the sales and marketing sector. The first event I managed (Health + Safety) was a complete sell-out and a great success, so it was a hard decision for me to leave. However, I wanted to further my education at University in the hope it would further enhance my skills in the industry.

Marketing Executive

CEO at Lightbulb Media | Scaling epic brands with paid ads, copywriting & content that converts 💡

It’s hard to find a marketing partner you can trust these days. The internet is filled with lofty claims from fresh faced gurus peddling "guarantees" and promises of overnight riches.

Here’s how it usually goes:

😍 Promised the world on a stick by an agency/freelancer 
😅 Locked into a 12-month contract
🙂 Handed off to a junior who can barely tie their own shoelaces 
🙃 Slowly losing the will to live as you wade through excuses for why nothing is working
😭 Patiently waiting for your contract to end so you can finally jump ship

We feel your pain. Most of our clients come to us having been burned by blaggers big & small, but we don’t blow smoke up arses here.

We've spent the last 6+ years scaling businesses just like yours through:

- Paid Advertising 
- Social Media
- Copywriting
- Content Creation
- Personal Branding 

Our work has generated £150m+ in revenue for our clients across the UK, USA & Europe, and we won’t be slowing down any time soon.

Want to see examples? Check out my Featured section, the case studies on our website, and our Instagram Highlights where we’ve got a chunky collection of them 📈

We’re big on data here, you see.

So if you’re serious about growing online, and you’re open to working with a company who will cut the fluff and tell you exactly what you need to hear, rather than what you want to hear, then we might just be your dream partner.

We’re also all absolutely hilarious. We won’t charge you for that, though.

Drop me a DM or email marketing@lightbulbmedia.co.uk and let’s grab a brew ☕️

Dear young people,

There’s absolutely no shame in staying at home for a couple of years whilst you figure out what you want to do with your life.

If you’re lucky enough to have a family that will allow it, and you’re contributing to the household in some way, make the most of the incredible privilege you have.

Every year thousands of 20-somethings get societally shamed into moving to big cities at the first opportunity to show how “independent” they are.

Ironically, the folks shouting about this independence are usually sat in the dark eating super noodle butties for tea and buying their washing powder on Klarna.

Doesn’t sound so independent to me?

I totally get that there’s a small minority of people out there who thrive under immense pressure, but from my experience, many really don’t. 

The economy is on its arse, a tub of Lurpak costs £7.50, and the property market is like some sick joke pulled from an episode of Black Mirror.

If you’re trying to build a business from the ground up, shelling out £1.5k a month on rent, bills & parking in a city centre is going to demolish your cashflow.

And for what? To get a “living life bro 🔥” comment from a roided up recruitment consultant that takes pictures with Wayne Lineker?

Hard pass.

So many people are now trapped in an endless cycle of debt & stress, working jobs they hate because they felt a need to keep up appearances for internet strangers.

Millions of people don’t have the luxury of choice, so if you do, please don’t waste it.

Use the time to build the foundations of something great, and then work your arse off to pay it back tenfold to the people who supported you as soon as it’s humanly possible.


#GenZ #Business #Careers

Lewis Kemp

Seen a lot of debate recently about whether people should work for free or not. 

To be honest, I think it’s the wrong question altogether. Because this implies that there’s some element of choice in the matter. 

The folks who automatically say “yes” tend to be, unsurprisingly, the most privileged amongst us. 

Not always in the silver spoon up the arse category, but most definitely people who’ve never had to worry about where their next meal is coming from.

As someone who grew up with the square root of fck all, I don’t like it when people are shamed for not being willing to do free work because they “don’t want it enough”.

No, mate. They’d just quite like to be able to put the heating on and feed the kids.

Being able to work for free for “exposure” or to get your foot in the door somewhere is a massive privilege.

Last time I checked, humans did need food, water & shelter to survive. And all of these things (unfortunately) do cost money. 

Y’know. The thing that’s in pretty short supply during a recession.

For full transparency, we have done work for free in the past. But it’s always been:

- based on OUR terms
- for a charity or good cause that really needs it
- when we were in a financially stable position to do so 

Some people simply don’t have that choice.

So for all the businesses out there happy to request for free work to be submitted, please stop with the illusion that you’re giving everyone a fair bite at the cherry.

Because what you’re really saying is:

“this offer only applies to privileged folks with enough spare resource to be exploited”
 
Fixed it for ya. No charge either.

Right up your street.


#Marketing #Freelance #Business

Discovery Call: A Short Story 

*ring ring*

Them: Hi Lewis. If we put £2000 into ads, how much will we get out of it? We’re a new business and we don’t have any data but we know who we want to target.

Me: There’s no way of knowing that until we start and gauge the market.

Them: Oh. Agency XYZ said we could get at least 5x. What do you think?

Me: Agency XYZ is talking shite. There’s no way of setting KPIs like that without a shred of data to work from.

Them: Right, well thanks for your time. We’re gonna give it a go with these other guys and see how we get on.

*6 months later*

Them: Hi again. The results with Agency XYZ have been awful. Please can we pick this conversation back up?

Fin.



#Marketing #PPC #Advertising

Can I tell you a secret?

There’s a reason why most of the personal branding gurus peddle impressions as a success metric.

Meet Bob 👴🏼

Bob wants more clients. He’s only getting 100 impressions on his posts.

So he scours the internet until he finds someone that promises to skyrocket his LinkedIn presence and get him 20 hot leads a day. 

Enter Destiny 🧜🏻‍♀️

When Destiny writes a post for Bob, the first thing she’ll do is engage with it to give it a boost.

This pushes the posts out to HER audience, and Bob’s average views jump from 100 to 6,000 overnight. He also gains 1500 new followers along the way.

The graphs are all green. 

Bob is creaming himself thinking of all the revenue to come, whilst Destiny immediately wraps this initial “growth” up in a case study and starts pushing it as proof of success.

But there’s a problem. Bob doesn’t actually sell personal branding.

He sells enterprises level software to the CTOs of legal scale-ups.

The once small but highly relevant feed he had before has been replaced with cheat sheets, motivational quotes, and AI- generated platitudes from halfway across the world. 

Fast forward 6 months, and the tsunami of qualified leads has not followed as promised. 

When Bob questions Destiny about this, she shows him the impression numbers.

Bob responds by showing his empty bank account.

Destiny realises the jig is up. 

It’s been a good run of cash, and she’s already managed to use Bob’s stats to snare another poor unsuspecting soul with shallow knowledge and deep pockets.

She lives to fight another day. 

Meanwhile, Bob is 25k down and now has a very large fatberg clogging his pipeline. 

And so the cycle continues until the end of time.

Don’t be like Bob.

Always ask to see the metrics that actually matter.

If they tell you it’s “impressions”, run away as fast as you can.


#PersonalBranding #LinkedIn #Marketing

You’ll often hear me say that going viral is a terrible strategy if your goal is to generate revenue on here.

But I’m a data guy, which means I do like to regularly check and make sure my assumptions are still correct.

So a couple of weeks ago I ran a little experiment 👨🏼‍🔬

I decided to spend a week writing things intended to go “viral”. 

Across the 3 posts written, they hit approx 2,000,000 views. Great success, right?

Total leads generated = 0

After letting the algo calm down a bit, I reverted back to controlled TOF posting with disqualification for the next 3. 

At the start of this week, I did a single post showcasing some actual client results and explaining the types of businesses we want to work with.

Only 13,000 views. 
The pain. The shame.

Total leads generated = 6

Turns out the data still supports the original hypothesis.

Going viral is great for the ego, but not so much for the bank balance.

If anyone would like to share some supporting data to the contrary, I’d be very interested to see it.

(I’ve asked this many times and not a single person has ever been able to show me a shred of it. Funny, that.)

Anyway, please stop handing over your money to whoppers who tell you “mOrE vIeWs MeAnZ mOrE cHaNcE oF bUsInEsS”.

Because it really doesn’t.

As many of the fellas out there will tell you:

It’s never been the size that matters.
It’s what you do with it that counts. 


#ImSomewhatOfAScientistMyself #LinkedIn #Marketing

STEAL my strategy to save yourself at least £997 in 4 easy steps 👇🏼


1. Actively seek out the posts that say idiotic things like:

- More followers = more business 
- Photos perform better than text only
- The format of the post matters more than the content itself
- Repost this to make someone’s day  

2. Now scroll to the comments. You’ll likely notice the same 15-20 people parroting back the same claims in a slightly different way:

“Omg, so true! Can’t believe more people don’t know about this [tag poster]”

3. Take out a pen and write down the name of every person in that thread. 

4. Keep your hard-earned money as far away from them as possible. 

Congrats. You just saved yourself at least £997 and prevented your audience relevance & conversion rate from being completely eviscerated.

I’m always amazed at how many people will publicly advertise how little they know about effective marketing, despite offering it as a service. 

But I’m even more amazed at how many others will throw their online reputation down the toilet and hitch their wagon to the dopamine train for an extra 34 reposts from Chennai.

Whether you like it or not, you’ll be judged on the quality of the company you keep, both online and offline. 

What might feel like short term gains in “visibility” will lead to much deeper losses in revenue and reputation over the long term. 

You might think it’s tougher to be heard & seen right now, and it is. But I assure you this really isn’t the way out.

Because the frustration you feel now will be dwarfed by the shame that hits when you reach 75k followers, still can’t make rent, and you finally realise you’ve absolutely fcked it. 

At that point, your only viable option will be to sell the same hopes & dreams to the people who are just as naive & desperate as you once were.

The world really doesn’t need another bell end.

Be the first you. 
Not the 3746th someone else.


#ArtificialIncompetence #SocialMedia #Marketing

I see a lot of people talk about “storytelling”, or even worse, “story selling” 🤢

Shoot me clean in the head.

And yet these people always have to attach an irrelevant pic for good measure.

Shame, that. Because, in my humble opinion, real stories are told with words.

Think about the actual best storytellers in history.

Shakespeare? Checked it. Not many pics.
Dickens? Nope. Definitely no selfies.
Orwell? Too busy with words. 

When you hit the stage where your copy doesn’t need a crutch to survive online, then you’ll be a storyteller, my son.
- Rudyard Kipling (great cakes)

Top tip: the people who like what you say spend a lot more money than the people who like how you look, unless your job is selling how you look.

P.S- peep my OnlyFans in the comments 💦

Pick your guides wisely. 
Your business will thank you for it.

—————————

Pump my bell for more honest posts 🔔
Follow Lewis Kemp because I wasn’t hugged enough as a child.



#Marketing #Copywriting #LinkedIn

RIP to all the amazing ad creatives and copy that never made it past the “brand guidelines” 💔

I honestly used to think it was a myth, but since we started working with more 7-8 figure businesses, the difference in mindset is pretty staggering.

£1,000 client:

“Each ad must look like X, say Y, and be signed off my stepson who eats moths. You will under no circumstances veer away from this. The suggestions you made aren’t very “us” so don’t run with those. We’re not really interested in testing. We already know exactly what our customers want to see and hear. I spent a lot of money on Fiverr for these guidelines so they will definitely work. You’re the 9th agency we’ve had in 3 years so hopefully you can produce different results because our revenue has been stagnant for quite a while now.”

£10,000 client:

“Here’s the target. Here’s the budget. Do your thing. Let us know if you need anything.”

I’m not slating the concept of brand guidelines, but more often than not, they’re created before you’ve ever amplified anything at scale.

They’re based on what you think/hope will work.

If you actually want to scale online in a saturated industry, anything that restricts your ability to test and find new pockets of buyers is going to seriously harm your growth.

Call me crazy but it’s usually quite profitable to focus on doing more of what actually works, even if that directly contradicts what you want to work.

Ultimately you need to decide whether you’re building a business for your customers, or for your ego.

We can only help with one of those.


#Marketing #Brand #Growth

Honest LinkedIn Post Translations: 
The Marketing Edition 👇🏼

🚩 “Competitive salary”
It’s so low that we daren’t announce it publicly.

🚩 “Need a quick turnaround”
We’ve massively underestimated how much work this is, and that is your problem now.

🚩 “I’ve dabbled a bit myself so know how it all works”
I have absolutely no idea how this works, but I’m still going to question your every move.

🚩 “It shouldn’t take you long”
The budget is £0.

🚩 “No agencies please”
The budget is £0.

🚩 “This task would suit a freelancer/graduate”
The budget is £0….but we reckon we can convince you to do this for free in exchange for “exposure”.


If you’re just starting out in your marketing career, keep your eyes peeled for any of these red flags.

And make sure those hamstrings are nice and limber so that you can run away as fast as possible.

Thank me later.


#Marketing #Business #Recruitment

“Why are you so quiet today?”

Have you ever walked into a packed bar or a football stadium?

Y’know, where you’re enveloped by that dull buzz of inaudible noise like you’re stepping into a wall of treacle? 

Well, imagine that your brain tried to process every single word from every single conversation simultaneously. 

Tricky, right?

I always remember watching the scene in Bruce Almighty where he starts hearing millions of prayers all at once and thinking:

“That’s exactly how my head sounds.”

Now imagine having that tsunami of noise inside your brain constantly from the moment you wake up, to the moment you close your eyes at night (and often beyond that).

So, when you are inevitably faced with a social situation, you’re left with two options:

Retreat or Attack.

Retreating means going inwards and completely shutting down. This feels safe but it will draw attention to you, so you feel it’s best to be done in private if possible.

Attacking means pretending everything is fine and becoming the life of the party instead.  You do this to try and fit in as best you can, and to make sure everyone else is having a good time whilst not alerting anyone to the internal screaming in your mind.

The irony of it all is that attacking does mean that you just kick the can down the road a little, and will definitely have to retreat for the days or weeks after to build back what you spent.

So, yeah. That’s why I’m quiet today.

Just a little snippet from inside an autistic mind. 

Hope it helps to shed a little light for any parents struggling to understand how their ND child’s brain operates.



#Autism #Neurodiversity #MentalHealth

In a world that’s constantly pushing you to be, do, work, grow & consume more with every thumbscroll, sometimes it‘s good to pause every once in a while.

Don’t worry, I’m not going all “Live Laugh Love” on you. 

Just a little epiphany I had whilst snorting Creme Eggs this weekend in a rare moment of relaxation.

22yr old Lewis would be pretty chuffed with the stuff that 32yr old Lewis is doing.

- I don’t have a bajillion quid in the bank.
But I do have enough to hire cool people, choose who we work with, give to decent charities, and look after my family.

- I’m not a rippling adonis of a man. 
But I’m healthy, can still see my bits without using a mirror, and I hear dadbods are all the rage anyway.

- I haven’t achieved global fame.
Because I’d rather get a prostate exam from Freddie Krueger than have my entire sense of self-worth tied to a social media app.

I reckon, if you were honest with yourself, most of you are already doing a lot of the things that you 10 years ago used to dream about.

This isn’t me telling you to relax and put your feet up btw.

Christ knows you’ll get absolutely nowhere unless you’re willing to outwork everyone else and stay disgustingly disciplined for years.

BUT, as much older & wiser people have been telling me, you can still give yourself a little pat on the back now & then whilst you keep moving forwards.

They’re not mutually exclusive. 

FYI- This will be my only feelgood post of the year, so please drink it in.

Normal service will resume tomorrow.


#SocialMedia #Business #NewCrystalsWhoDis

I was wrong about Pinterest.

If you asked me about it 5/6 years ago I would have said it was an app where people made little vision boards and planned their weddings. 

What a silly sausage I was.

It’s only over the last 3 years of running ads on there that I’ve realised how much of a powerhouse it is for e-commerce brands. 

Fast forward to today and it’s now a staple performance channel for 50% of the brands we work with.

If you get your creative nailed on here and can send that traffic to a fast-loading, high converting website/landing page that matches your ad aesthetic, you’ll unlock huge pockets of untapped customers.

The numbers speak for themselves 👇🏼


#Pinterest #Ecommerce #Marketing 

*Data shown here on a 7/1/1 window. Client in Home & Garden.

£5,856 spent on ads. £174,122 made in sales.  The very definition of “Jab, Jab, Jab, Right Hook” in March for this cosmetics brand.   Blended ROAS is nice, but our main focus as a paid ads partner is always that sweet, sweet acquisition.
 Bringing in new customers for less than a tenner? ✅ Having those new customers yield a 9.69x? ✅ Above a 16.3x Profit On Ad Spend? ✅  In a world of businesses who still treat all of their channels like competitors and wonder why they can’t ever seem to scale, l’m forever grateful we get to work with epic brands & teams who fully grasp the reality of multi-channel marketing & how to get the best results from it.  When you pair that approach with top tier creative, genuinely quality products, and a high converting website, you can’t really go far wrong. 
More clients like this please.


#Ecommerce #Marketing #FacebookAds

Think of your business like a football team. 

As the owner, you’re the goalkeeper. The last line of defence to stop shit going wrong.

Systems & processes are your back line. They’ll protect you from getting peppered from all angles and losing the will to live.

Marketing is the midfield:

- Some will help out defending. 
- Some will dictate the game and create chances for your strikers. 
- Some will do loads of stepovers to make you think they’re creating chances and then kick it into Row Z (think Antony at Manchester United).

But regardless of how many perfect crosses you whip into the box, you probably won’t score if your striker has a head like a Toblerone and moves like they’re running in treacle.

The striker is your website. 

I beg you. Please go and sort that out before you invest in Ballon D’Or marketing. 

The best ads in the world can’t help you if your site takes 16 seconds to load and navigates like a pisshead trying to find a Wetherspoons toilet. 

The easiest way to double your revenue is NOT to double your ad spend.

It’s to double your conversion rate. 

Always start at the end and work backwards from there. 

It’s infinitely more profitable than doing it the other way around.


#Marketing #Advertising

Just two weeks to go until I pack my finest kilt and head up to Edinburgh to see my mate Jak Carlin 🟠

Buzzing to be invited to speak on The Business Playbook which I’ve admired from afar for ages.

Also very much looking forward to finally meeting some more of my online Scottish pals in the flesh.

I’ve been assured that the venue isn’t a strip club, but judging by the name, I’m going to hold out hope for a little longer 🤞🏼

If you are in or around Edinburgh in a fortnight and fancy saying hello, the event deets are here:

🗓 25th April 
🕕 6pm-9.30pm
📍 Coco Boho, George St, Edinburgh 
🎟 Free

👇🏼👇🏼👇🏼
https://lnkd.in/eC27mUGB?

See ya there 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿🍻


#Edinburgh #Marketing #Business

“I want to get more inbound leads, but I’m not a great writer. What do I do?”

I realise I might be doing us out of future ghostwriting gigs here, but building an engaged community is about so much more than just posting decent content.

If you’re not a natural copywriter and you can’t afford to hire a really handsome one (like moi), use this strategy consistently for 6-12 months and I will bet my left nut that the inbound leads start pouring in.

Every DAY you comment on 9 posts:

- 3 who are further on than you.
- 3 who are peers in your industry.
- 3 who are just starting out.

Every WEEK you DM 6 people:

- 2 who are further on than you.
- 2 who are peers in your industry.
- 2 who are just starting out.

Every MONTH you meet/zoom 3 people:

- 1 who is further on than you.
- 1 who is a peer in your industry.
- 1 who is just starting out

Does that sound like a lot of work?

It will cost you about 5 hours per month, which is probably the avg screen time you spend mindlessly scrolling on a single day.

I’ve repeated this process for 4 years straight and have a 100% inbound business, regularly landing 7-8 figure clients, and have made circa £1.5m from this single platform alone.

It fucking works.

Give relentlessly and without expectation.

You’ll be surprised at how fast that hockey stick growth happens after the first 6-9 months of feeling that nobody is listening or gives a toss.

Just don’t forget your old pal Lewis when you’re filthy rich and famous 🤲🏼

FYI- I probably just saved you £777 for that shit course you were going to buy.

Thank me later. 


#PersonalBranding #Content #Marketing

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