Suffolk Marketing Blog - Holovis International

Holovis are a VERY specialist technology company, based in Leicestershire. They were looking for a site which closely matched their existing corporate ID (very black, with dashes of yellow & blue). They build hardware for virtual 3D worlds, so wanted certain elements of the site to have a strong sense of depth. Check out the portfolio page as well as the partner page!

Also, Holovis had a very text heavy site before, which they didn’t necessarily want to lose. To sharpen up the design we created a ‘tabbed browsing’ system for the solution pages allowing the user to view more information as required, rather than be presented with long (boring) pages of text.

The home page is designed to reflect one of their products, the JupiterWALL, as seen at T5/Heathrow. Business Vitamins managed the entire project from initial scope, through graphic design, website build and provided all of the copywriting too.

Do you need to outsmart your competitors? Contact us now on 0845 310 2457 to discuss what you want to achieve and how we can help you meet your goals.

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Suffolk Marketing Blog | Got a Sneaky Britney?

Business Vitamins is on Twitter. Yay. And?

Well, we rather like it actually. Let me divulge our Twitter strategy, which, by the way, is no great secret and you’re quite welcome to copy it, refer it on and claim it as your own or simply ignore it.

Here it is…

Ready?

We use Twitter to engage with people who we think might either become clients or might be in a position to refer us to new potential clients.

That’s it. Good eh? Not what you were expecting? No great mysterious cloak & daggeresque dark art? Nothing complicated or overly computery-utery? Nope, not here.

So how do we do this? Very simple really:

1. We signed up (free); we created our background (free); we downloaded Tweetdeck (also free).
2. We searched for local businesses and started following them.
3. We “tweeted” a few snippets of news and local interest information.
4. In doing so we acquired some followers , who, no doubt were searching on some of the keywords in our Tweets – ahhaaa…, did we choose our Tweets carefully?? ;-)
5. We followed people we met through local networking groups and Twittered with them directly.
6. We were ourselves - tough going, with only 140 characters!!
7. We Re-Tweet interesting Tweets that we see.
8. We suggest other Tweeters to our followers.
9. We allow about an hour and a half a week for all of this. Give or take.
So there you go, in less than 9 steps, and in four months we have about 400, extremely well targetted followers.

Let me tell you what we don’t do:

1. Participate in Twitter because we feel we should.
2. Start Tweeting with no strategy.
3. Always Tweet about our business.
4. Always Tweet "special offers".
5. Always Tweet on the same subject.
6. Follow too many celebrities or massive corporations.
7. Allow countless instances of Britney Spears (or similar) to follow us and publicise hyperlinks to iffy websites promoting, well, I'm sure you can guess..

Of course this is just our strategy and it might not work for you or fit with your business objectives. But if your objective is to build a local presence and get your name out there amongst similarly sized businesses, then you could certainly do worse than following the above steps.Do you need to outsmart your competitors? Contact us now on 0845 310 2457 to discuss what you want to achieve and how we can help you meet your goals.

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Suffolk Marketing Blog | The Perfect Pitch

Picture this…

You’re in Portugal. On the Algarve. You’re lazily exploring a traditional local market. There are a few bargains and a lot of “designer gear” of iffy provenance. You see daily essentials you might expect to find more readily in a supermarket (toe nail clippers anyone?), as well as a big slice of local colour. For all that, you might buy something, you might not. Who knows?

There’s a stall ahead manned by a somewhat squat, sweaty, moustachioed, swarthy looking gentlemen. He’s selling ladies underwear no less. There he is, thong in hand and held up high, calling “Tiny knickers – Tiny knickers! Buy them here!”, to the young ladies ahead of you.

Upon nearing the stall, the man notices you approaching. The thong is quickly discarded, and a revised undergarment is being paraded around, flaunted at full volume, “BIG knickers! – BIIIIIIIIG knickers! Buy them here!”. A thousand eyes look your way, most of which are accompanied by a rather large smirk. You scuttle off.

True story, and one my mother-in-law enjoys telling, despite the somewhat size-ist connotations! Oh how I laughed when she told me..
I don’t know if a purchase was made or not, doubtful I would think, given her obvious embarrassment at the time. But it did make me think that despite the rather clumsy execution it was a micro-level example of great marketing.

The aforementioned swarthy gent was simply adhering to one of the oldest marketing rules : identify your potential customers, choose the correct product/service for them, tailor the messaging, clear call to action.

I guess the part he missed off was ‘try not to offend anyone’!

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Suffolk Marketing Blog | Peel Me a Cookie

I love cookies. Particularly chunky ones with lumps of chocolate in them the size of icebergs. Naughty but very nice. I love bananas too. Residing at the opposite end of the healthy lifestyle spectrum, the humble banana is high in fibre, vitamins B6 and C, as well as iron and potassium. In fact, the banana is a veritable smorgasbord of healthy goodness.

Driving back from a long meeting recently, I topped up my energy levels with a gorgeous looking white chocolate cookie. Scrummy. But as I ate, I got a funny aftertaste. After initially writing this off due to tiredness, my second bite yielded the same taste. Bananas!

As intriguing a combination as this might sound, the cookie was not supposed to be laced with essence of banana. I even checked the packaging to make sure I hadn’t picked up a rogue bag by mistake!

On reflection, I thought I might like to try a banana-tinged white choc chip cookie in the future, but that moment’s eating experience was tainted beyond redemption. Simply put, my expectations were not met. No matter how nice my “Banookie” might have been, it wasn’t what I expected.

We all need to be aware of and manage expectations carefully. As a marketing business, we need to be fully aware of likely response rates to various types of marketing campaigns. We think our clients should be too.

Many businesses might be surprised to learn that according to the Institute of Direct Marketing, a normal response rate to a direct mail campaign is “only” 2.6%. Sounds awful doesn’t it? 97.4% of contacts don’t respond! So if your campaign managed a 2% response rate, is that a complete disaster? What if your campaign achieved a 5% response rate? The reality is that whilst a 5% positive response is great, most businesses would STILL feel disappointed that 95% of the letters/cards/postcards/flyers they had paid to be lovingly designed, printed and distributed were so quick to find the recipients recycling system.

Of course there are tactics we employ to ensure response rates are significantly higher, such as multi-touch campaigns or tightly integrating direct mail into other marketing activity. In this way Business Vitamins aim to ensure that at LEAST a 2.6% response rate is achieved.

And to ensure neither our clients or ourselves slip up, we'll also ensure we discuss what you can reasonably expect to achieve. You might be surprised how much!

Banana update:
Try peeling a banana from the bottom and you won't have to
pick the little 'stringy things' off of it. Apparently that's how monkeys do it. Also, take your bananas apart before placing them in your fruit bowl. If you leave them connected at the stem, they ripen faster.

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Suffolk Marketing Blog | No Odd Socks Please

The faintest sniff of global economic recovery is being smelt right now in Bury St Edmunds, Suffolk. For it is here that one young couple we know are feeling enough house-market positivity to embark on the arduous process of moving home.
Considering a more rural location, perhaps they’ve reached a certain age where town living isn’t as appealing as it was once-upon-a-curry-night ago. Typically, the impetus for change is being driven by the lady of the house. This hard shove is being felt by none more so than the ‘paterfamilias’, having spent the last few weeks tool-box in hand. All recent spare time has been spent cleaning, tidying, painting, de-cluttering and fixing. No mean feat with a young daughter running them both ragged!

It’s all been worth it though. What was already an extremely attractive property in a great location now has even more curbside appeal. Once inside, it even appears more spacious. Everything is shiny and new for all those prospective buyers to admire. A speedy sale is assured.

Like selling a house, appearance is everything in business. Yet everyday I see small elements that severely tarnish business image. One reason for this is that we’re often told to “focus on the bigger picture”; repainting the door won’t bring us new customers!

Well, yes and no. How do you react to dead links on a website? Do you say hey-ho and continue to browse the site? I expect you return to Google and search elsewhere. It’s not just dead links, typos on or offline, out of date news or poor quality stationery. A recent annoyance is “Twitter Spam” – unsolicited followers offering links to porn, dubious tablets and get rich quick schemes. Hardly the sort of association most businesses would welcome yet they can be blocked so easily.

This is all down to ensuring all customer touch points are inspected and polished regularly. Every one of them speaks volumes about your business and the emphasis you place on attention to detail. Every sub-optimal feature conspires to create an impression. Not a good one either. Few of us would go on a first-date wearing odd socks (no matter how trendy it was) or show buyers around your property without sweeping the floors first so why not apply the same care to a business? Chances are, your customers will reward you.

Do you need to outsmart your competitors? Contact us now on 0845 310 2457 to discuss what you want to achieve and how we can help you meet your goals.

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Suffolk Marketing Blog | Colonisation by Americanisation

My father-in-law enjoys a good rant. Although not a grumpy old man, he is a man in his mid sixties; successful in his career although long retired. Whilst it’s not his defining characteristic, he is compulsively METICULOUS in his execution of spelling and grammar. He hates American exports.
He’s really thinking about their language exports in particular. Small pieces of Americana drip-feeding into our psyche. Example: Have you tried renting a film recently? You might have more success renting a movie. Would you like me to post it to you? Yeah, “mail” it to me. Not sure? Do the math. That sort of thing.

Now, he’s not suggesting that our blacktops will be lined with sidewalks or that we’ll be buying diapers and candy with our hard earned greenbacks just yet… but it may happen eventually. Does the gradual colonisation of the English language from across the pond matter though? Language has continued to evolve since, well, since forever. We don’t talk or write like our Victorian ancestors any more than they spoke or wrote like their Tudor predecessors.

So if this has always been happening, why the fuss? I “guess” it’s because the pace of change has increased significantly in more recent years due in part to the proliferation of American television programs; oops, that should be programmes. Also the vast number of websites written in (at best) international English but more likely spell-checked by the U.S. dictionary version of MS Word must be guilty of cultural imperialism.

How does that makes you feel when you’re on the receiving end of Americanized marketing material? I know how it makes my father-in-law feel because he told me. Several times. And in great depth too. It might be fair to say that a younger audience wouldn’t give “a rat's ass” and may even embrace cool, Americanised txt msg style yoof speak whilst the older consumer would much prefer the written word to be spelt in precisely crafted and fully Anglicised English.

The point is that clear audience segmentation prior to any form of communication is the key to successful marketing. A business might have a very wide audience encompassing twelve year olds boys through to octogenarian nuns, but to manage one marketing campaign to successfully engage with them all would be ridiculous to the point of possibly being offensive.
God bless America.

Do you need to outsmart your competitors? Contact us now on 0845 310 2457 to discuss what you want to achieve and how we can help you meet your goals.

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Suffolk Marketing Blog | Best of a Brand Bunch?

Happy Birthday to Terry Wogan KBE, 71 years old today!

Revered as a British national treasure despite being Irish, Terry is one of our best loved and most loathed celebrities.

Rising to fame in the 1960s on Irish radio and subsequently Radio One, he moved to the smooth sounds of Radio Two in the early 1970s. He even released a single of his own and annoyingly, one of my earliest memories is of bopping around to Terry’s smash hit “The Floral Dance”. Thankfully Terry’s career in music-making was short-lived and he went on to become the face of his own TV chat show, Children In Need and of course your friend and mine, The Eurovision Song Contest.

Clearly, his long career in Radio and TV has made him extremely well known. And being so recognisable, both audibly and visually, it’s arguable he’s almost succeeded in becoming a brand in his own right.

But can a person be a brand? Or just a celebrity? Part of a brand’s image is its persona as embodied in human form, via likes, dislikes, gender, wealth, age, mood, status and more.

If we’re debating whether Mr Wogan has therefore become a brand, what does his brand represent? He’s Irish, obviously, and probably bald, but ‘Hello Magazine’ has yet to publish the photographs. He’s certainly an irreverent comedian, sarcastic too. He’s managed to position himself as a kindly uncle who’s fun and interesting to listen to (apparently) and yet also appeals to the grumpy-old-man, chiming with the Victor Meldrew streak alive in many of us. But I’m not convinced he’s a brand, to me he’s just a minor celebrity.

At the other end of the scale we have the Beckhams. They ooze glamour, style, wealth, vitality and sex. Cleverly, they entice us with their wholesome family image as well. You can buy Beckham branded products as their scent and clothes ranges have been launched around the world. For many, this allows us the opportunity to be them for just a moment… Back to my question, can people be brands? Surely if anyone can, the Beckhams are a good example?

As consumers, we have relationships with brands everyday via the products and services we choose. The strongest brands pop into our minds through association. For example, the mention of ‘family entertainment’ conjures up Disney for most of us. But a brand can also be a symbol like the Nike swoosh or the shape of the Coca-Cola bottle.

So can anyone actually be their own brand as opposed to being the face of a brand?

I guess that’s open for discussion.Do you need to outsmart your competitors? Contact us now on 0845 310 2457 to discuss what you want to achieve and how we can help you meet your goals.

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Suffolk Marketing Blog | Timing Is Everythng

It's 75 years to the day since John Dillinger was shot and killed outside a Chicago theatre in 1934!

For those not in the know, this is very topical given the recent release of “Public Enemies”, starring Johnny Depp as the aforementioned Dillinger. No doubt this is a film I’m soon to endure as my wife has had a crush on “Pretty boy” Depp ever since he played the leather-clad digitally-impaired hairdresser/topiarist in Edward Scissorhands. Hmph.

The latest Harry Potter romp, a rather dubious sounding “Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince” (half-blood always meant something else in my day..), was released recently too. Amazingly, just before the start of the summer holidays. Coincidence?

It’s not news that film companies time their release of films extremely well. Most films aimed primarily at children are released in the summer holidays or on the run up to Christmas. I seriously doubt the timing of the Dillinger movie is accidental either.

Even marketers without limitless budgets and access to Hollywood pin-ups can learn from this sense of timing. It all comes down to planning. Public holidays, construction projects, sporting events and even film releases can be spotted and jotted months or even years ahead.

So why is so much marketing reactive? It just piles the pressure on, leaves you wide open for mistakes and being 'last minute' often means concurrent campaigns are less integrated than they should be. One reason of course is that many firms notice what their competitors are doing and then want a piece of the action.

Why wait for your competitors?! Mr Dillinger waited for the FBI and look what happened to him! Oh I’m sorry, didn’t you know they shot and killed Dillinger?!

No need to see the film now Selina…

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Suffolk Marketing Blog | To post or not to post...

It’s fifty years since the first UK postcode was introduced in 1959!

A nice little factoid and one I’ll certainly file away under “useful gems for the pub quiz”… but so what, surely they’ve been replaced by that ubiquitous item of personal identity, the email address?

I’m not so sure. There’s still a place for direct mail. Yes, emails are probably cheaper than direct mail, particularly when sent in serious volume, but not that much. Yes, measurement of certain metrics is easier (try measuring the open rate of a postcard), but surely the best measurement is that of the number of people responding to a campaign?

Emails can be designed with company values and branding in mind, but being digital media, I can’t help thinking something is lost. Perhaps that’s why email marketing is FAR more effective as a method of retaining, informing and communicating with existing customers than new prospects. It’s just too damn easy to hit “delete” if you don’t know who the email is from, no matter how targeted it purports to be.

Of course the beauty of direct mail is that it’s tangible. When I open a business letter, the senders choice of paper type, paper quality, typeface, printing quality, 1st vs 2nd class stamp, and all those other touchy-feely criteria tell me something about who’s written to me. Often it tells me something positive about them, other times it's a subtle warning. The point is, they’ve communicated with me before I’ve even read what they’ve sent me!

So has direct mail had its day? Is email the new king? Or is it horses-for-courses?

Do you need to outsmart your competitors? Contact us now on 0845 310 2457 to discuss what you want to achieve and how we can help you meet your goals.

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Suffolk Marketing Blog - Purepricing

This is a modest sized website for a small business that analyses mobile phone tariffs for the major mobile service providers. They were painfully aware of how dull their services were perceived, so wanted an element of fun to be injected into their site, still being mindful of their clients and so not appearing too “off the wall”. They are very much statistician types, or “beancounters” – and so we came up with the idea of using fingers (to count on..) throughout the site.

We liked the use of the sweets too: mints for refreshing solutions, etc etc! Business Vitamins managed the website design project from initial scope, through graphic design, and provided all of the copywriting too, although the build phase was passed to another of the clients partners.

Do you need to outsmart your competitors? Contact us now on 0845 310 2457 to discuss what you want to achieve and how we can help you meet your goals.

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Suffolk Marketing Blog - Turfcare, New Product Launch

The Customer

A UK-based manufacturer of professional turf maintenance equipment founded over 200 years ago in Norfolk.  Today it has 400+ employees at the UK facility with three similar sized sister sites in the USA.  There are four brand names in the UK product portfolio, each aimed at a specific market sector.

The Problem

This traditional company had an excellent reputation for high quality manufactured goods but after some research had found its product image was viewed as dated and tired in the marketplace.  An innovative new product was on the verge of completion, which would ensure the future safety of the UK-based factory, only if sales were successful.  Failure may lead to the closure of the plant and the transfer of manufacturing to one of the US sites.

The Solution

A two-fold marketing strategy was formulated.  First, it was essential to introduce the new product to existing and emerging markets.  Second, it was necessary to revive a flagging old-fashioned brand by re-packaging it as fresh, contemporary and cutting edge. 

The execution of the campaign was centred on a product ‘reveal’ at the main European industry trade show. It was based on a modern, automotive product launch using dramatic stand designs and a full audio visual production.  For six weeks leading up to the show, an integrated multi-lingual marketing campaign gave ‘teaser’ images of the product without showing the machine in its entirety. Dramatic images were commissioned by a professional photographer to show the product in a striking environment. 

Promotional items were also sent to key customers to hint at what was coming.  VIP’s were invited to an exclusive preview and test drive session with results being ‘leaked’ to the press.  The marketing plan also utilised a mixture of email marketing, phased direct mail pieces and timely advertising campaigns.  This was also backed up by targeted PR activity.

The Results

The sales team had been targeted with delivering orders for 40 units in the three months after the launch, which was also the final quarter of the financial year.  With the help of the Business Vitamins marketing campaign, the orders received exceeded 100 units.

The product was given the ‘Best New Product’ award for 2007 in an online vote by consumers, undertaken by a respected industry magazine. 

The project also came in 14% under budget.

Do you need to outsmart your competitors? Contact us now on 0845 310 2457 to discuss what you want to achieve and how we can help you meet your goals.

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Suffolk Marketing Blog - Majenta Solutions Campaign Management

THE CUSTOMER

Majenta Solutions Ltd is a specialist CAD/CAM software and IT systems reseller, based in Brentwood Essex. Trading since 1995, Majenta has partnered with some of the biggest names in their industry including Autodesk, Siemens PLM, Network Appliance, HP and Dell. Whilst Majenta had no dedicated marketing resource, they have been successful in generating reasonable sized new business, albeit ad hoc and sometimes sporadic.

THE CHALLENGE

• Communicate effectively and regularly to all customers raising awareness of

relevant products and services

• Identify any ‘low hanging fruits’

• Generate leads for the Sales Team

• Communicate effectively with all Majenta partners, and where appropriate 8claim and use Sales Development Funds available

• Support the sales team where appropriate so as not to distract from their 9primary role of closing business.

THE SOLUTION

Majenta turned to Business Vitamins for their experience of the market place and demonstrable track record in this sector.

Business Vitamins worked with the Majenta team to create an integrated marketing plan that was designed to maximise the cross-pollenisation between sales divisions, ensure all customers were being contacted regularly and above all deliver significant measurable sales pipeline results that could be tracked on their in-house CRM system, Salesforce.comtm.

Considerable focus was placed on dramatically enhancing Majenta’s online presence via search engine optimisation and “pay per click” campaigns, as well as enabling their website to deliver actual sales-leads.

The marketing plan utilised a mixture of email marketing and webinar activity as well as more traditional methods including direct mail, seminar, telemarketing, press release and advertising campaigns.

Business Vitamins then monitored the execution of the plan and ensured all key performance indicators were met, making changes where necessary.

THE RESULTS

Less than 12 months on from the start of the project, the Business Vitamins plan had delivered closed business of c£150k and a qualified opportunity pipeline of c£900k.

Do you need to outsmart your competitors? Contact us now on 0845 310 2457 to discuss what you want to achieve and how we can help you meet your goals.

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