Suffolk Marketing Blog | Holiday Let Website | Micawber Cottage

A B2B client of ours also owns a holiday let cottage in that great British seaside resort town of sunny Broadstairs. He needed a small website to tell the world the cottage was available to let and asked Business Vitamins to make it happen:

The website is handcoded (as opposed to using a content management system) and uses a unique bespoke website design that communicates the quirky nature of the cottage itself.

The site features two lightbox style galleries of both the cottage itself and about Broadstairs.

The site also uses an in-built availability checker & booking system - not something we created ourselves - an off-the-shelf widget that just needed to be plugged into the right part of the site.


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Suffolk Marketing Blog - Vandersanden, Integrated Campaign Management

The Client

Vandersanden BV (VDS) is a major European manufacturer of specialist building bricks, based in Belgium. They turn over c€80m, with most of their revenue coming from northern Europe. They have a long history of making very high quality bricks from locally sourced clay, as well as designing new and innovative building systems.

The Objective

VDS wanted to launch their flagship product, the Zero Bricktm into the UK market. Their target audience was wide, ranging from small private self-builders, specialist low-volume house builders and architects and specifiers from commercial architects and building contractors.
 

The key sales message was that the Zero Brick was new, different and unlike competitive solutions could be easily and quickly implemented without any additional training required by the brick layers.

VDS set themselves a target of having the Zero Brick firmly specified on a “significant” UK building project by the end of 2011. By significant, they specifically meant greater than 250k bricks. For reference, a typical UK 4 bedroom domestic property has c15k bricks.

The Problem

Vandersanden do not have a presence in the UK, except via their sales partner, Hoskins Brick, based near Cambridge. Historically, both VDS and Hoskins had only managed sporadic, ad-hoc display advertising which had not been backed up with awareness building via press releases. As a result, very few members of their target audience in the UK would have known either Vandersanden or their products. Whilst VDS knew what they wanted to achieve, they had little firsthand understanding of the UK construction or architectural media space.

The Solution

VDS turned to Business Vitamins who had been recommended having recently designed and built the new Hoskins Brick website. Business Vitamins drew upon their prior experience of marketing high quality products to the architectural and construction space, to create a workable marketing plan for VDS.

An initial mediaplan was built, listing the likely key publications read by the intended target audience. Using this, a range of PR opportunities was identified; a number of full page display adverts were created and a small number of direct mail pieces were designed. Each of these had specific tracking mechanisms in place to ensure that leads could easily be attributed to each media channel, and within that, which specific media title.

Additionally, an existing Zero Brick microsite was recreated by Vandersanden on a .co.uk domain, with tracking code in place in order to measure visitor numbers.

The Results

The campaign commenced in late June 2011 and ran for circa 5months. In total there were over 200 leads generated from the campaign. Of these, 128 leads were captured and recorded directly from the advertising, direct mail and PR. In addition, there were around at least another 75 instances of prospects contacting Hoskins Brick directly via telephone.

Most importantly, the campaign met its key objective. A major project, relating to the new construction of a major public sector building in Battersea, south-west London, has seen a deal specifying c6million Zero Bricks being specified for the sites marketing suite. 

Business Vitamins understand there is considerable potential for further sales leading directly from this initial opportunity; due mainly to interest from other public sector projects that are planned nearby.

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.

Why not find out more about Business Vitamins, Strategic B2B marketing agency Suffolk.

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Suffolk Marketing Blog | Ensure Radio Doesn’t Drive You Ga Ga

Unfortunately, radio can often be brushed aside or added to a PR campaign at the very last minute. Given the power of the radio to influence opinion, it is a grave mistake to simply ‘whizz the press release’ over to the local radio to ‘see if they might be interested’! There’s no ‘might be interested’ news for radio. It is clear when you have an opportunity to go on air, and here are a few pointers:
By far, the majority of radio stations are local. They are interested in hearing about stories that have an impact on the local community. Time and time again, the news desks at radio stations receive numerous ‘generic’ press releases not specific to that particular area. If your company has a product that could impact every household in the UK, it is no good just telling a local radio station that. You need to find a way of relating that ‘fact’ to their target audience. It might be that there is a local body that recognises the problem your product is designed to overcome or you may have conducted a survey that proves people in that area need to take action. Be careful though, radio journalists have very little ‘air-time’ to play with and even the slightest hint of product promotion will stop them from even considering your story! They are interested in straight-forward news.
It is no good sending a press release aimed at newspapers and magazines over to a radio news desk. It is always advisable to prepare a radio advisory story. Basically, it is a much shortened version of your initial press release and is much more colloquial in its tone. If you are not sure whether it is right for radio, try reading it out aloud – if it sounds like there are too many words and you stumble when reading it, go back to the drawing board and have another go. Make your sentences are short and ensure that each one links with the next so that it reads more like a story. Always try to summarise your story in the first paragraph though, making sure it takes no longer than 30 seconds.
Before you approach the news desk you need to think about exactly who is capable of going on air. They need to be able to speak clearly and confidently and about your company and be unflappable when questioned by a reporter.
It is always best to take note of all the times when your spokesperson is available and if you are aiming to appear on to a live show, you need to be able to tie-in with their schedule.

Consider a third party spokesperson. Somebody willing to talk objectively about the issues you wish to be broadcast will go a long way to making your points more credible. Make sure this person is fully informed about the content of your radio advisory and that they know what you intend to say. Again, you will need to know their exact availability in advance.

Remember, if you cover all these basic rules all that’s left to do is pick up the phone and speak to the radio station. If your story is not time critical, consider asking to speak to the radio’s forward planning desk. They are quite often the best place to start!

 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.

Why not find out more about Business Vitamins, Strategic B2B marketing agency Suffolk.

Or follow BizVits on Twitter? 
Or Like us on Facebook?
Or +1 us on Google+?
Or see the Business Vitamins channel on YouTube?