Suffolk Marketing Blog | Fieldens Wheels Tyres and ATVs

Fieldens Wheels Tyres & ATVs are a fantastic example of a great business tucked away in the Suffolk Countryside, quietly going about their business. What the casual observer may not realise is that Fieldens are a major business partner to a number of global tyre manufacturers as well as an approved Honda retailer.

Need an agricultural tyre wider than a car? Go to Fieldens! Need a bespoke wheel to put it on? Go to Fieldens! Need to get about off-road in areas even your 4x4 won't venture? Go to Fieldens!

Fieldens approached Business Vitamins to design and build them a new website. From a design perspective, it had to be "different". It must not look like so many off-the-shelf websites that are all but indistinguishable from each other.
From a content perspective, Fieldens wanted to be able to upload and populate an online database of their take-off tyres - no mean feat with over 1500 stock items and a very regular turn around.

Always keeping an eye to the future, Fieldens wanted to ensure that the choice of content management system did not force the website down a technologically limited cul-de-sac. It had to be able to grow with their business and whatever was thrown at it in the future.

The website Business Vitamins created uses Expression Engine to manage all the content and the client loves the look and feel of their new website.

There's much more to come - as and when the new Fieldens tools come online we'll let you know..

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 | 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 | Social Media Advertising

With literally millions of visitors every hour, Facebook & LinkedIn display advertising is a tempting proposition for anyone looking to get their business in front of a very big audience.

Assuming that most businesses do not have an infinite marketing budget, particularly for advertising via an immature channel, there will be some fairly serious questions to either ask or answer.

So which to use?

Clearly that very much depends on your business, your objectives and of course who (and where) you customers are. However, here are some quick guidelines that may help you decide where to put your money:

LinkedIn:

LinkedIn is the platform to use if your business sells to other businesses (B2B sales). Whilst businesses themselves are still run by human beings, a business purchase decision is very different from a consumer (B2C sales) purchase decision.  B2B purchasing tends to be a longer, fact based process that focuses on ROI. B2C purchasing tends to be a shorter and much more emotive process that focuses on our need for something immediately.

LinkedIn does a great job at encouraging us to complete our online profiles. This is important to marketers as the LinkedIn advertising system enables us to target our adverts by specifically targeting people with certain skills, job titles, industries and locations. This means we can precisely target likely prospects for our business offering.  Be aware that job titles can be a little deceptive or ambiguous and that the skills listed on certain profiles can be somewhat “aspirational” or just plain wrong!

Because B2B buying is often a medium to long term process, we would recommend not including incremental direct sales as an objective from a LinkedIn ad campaign. Yes, this might depend on what you’re selling, but you’re far more likely to successfully develop increased company/product/service awareness or generate new leads. The latter is likely to be achieved by incentivising people to sign up to receive more information on what you’re selling after they’ve clicked through to your landing page. Once you have their details, they’re fair game to contact using a secondary channel such as email marketing or even the good old fashioned telephone.

Facebook

Facebook is the platform to use if your business mainly sells to consumers. In addition to generating leads and developing awareness, Facebook advertising is also better at actually driving direct sales. Why? As well as sharing LinkedIn’s ability to target by location, Facebook advertising can target people by their interests, i.e. things they like. This automatically enables us to sell to someone’s emotions. For example, we can ensure adverts for mountain bike accessories only appear to people who have listed mountain-biking as a hobby. An emotive purchase is usually a no-brainer, in fact almost literally, as it’s bought with ones heart and not ones head! I’m sure we can all think of a personal example where that has backfired!

Facebook advertising can be used to target business Pages (note the capital P), as opposed to making the adverts appear on individuals pages (note the small p); so B2B targeting can also occur on this platform. And again, by considering interests, job titles and location, a good level of targeting can be achieved. Just like a lot of online B2B marketing, due to longer and more considered buying cycles, it may be worth limiting expectations to generating leads and developing awareness rather than generating direct sales.

B2B advertising is often more challenging. For example, your company sells PC support services; it’s highly doubtful that many people have listed a hobby that indicates their likely to want your services! Consequently, many B2B campaigns have extremely low click-through-rates.

Two final items to consider..

Firstly, click through rates via social media advertising in general, and in particular on Facebook, are extremely low. Obviously this is offset by the potentially huge number of impressions (number of times your advert is seen), but be prepared for some very low numbers. Like, really low, i.e.  0.03% - 0.1%.  

Secondly, consider those percentages when calculating a campaign budget if that campaign is to be priced by impression. You may find that even with a significant number of impressions, such a low click through rate may not deliver enough traffic to generate enough new enquiries that actually close into new business. Focussing on conversion optimisation is therefore critical!

If your budget can stretch to it, try running a campaign on both platforms at the same time. If  managed correctly, and the messaging is right (maybe different for different platforms?), it should be possible to definitively answer the question of which platform is right for your business.

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 - How to Win Customer Loyalty

In the current economic climate, customers are increasingly likely to shop around for goods and services.  When budgets are tight and adding real value becomes more difficult by the day, maintaining market share is all about customer loyalty.

During a recession, customers are less susceptible to a simple discount or a reward in return for a purchase.  Customers know the value of their money and seek to get the most from every pound.  From a commercial point of view, the way to bring that indefinable added something that customers seek is often through a loyalty scheme.

If you’re considering setting up such a scheme, the first thing to realise is that a good scheme is not about being cheaper.   It’s about being better and being different.    It is also an efficient way to influence customer behaviour without entering into a price war.

Second, you need to consider your objectives and aims carefully.  What are you trying to achieve?  Where does your product/service/brand fit?  You need to understand your customers to hold on to a share of their budget for any length of time.  Examine the supermarkets as a great example of this.  Sainsbury’s gives points, Tesco gives discounts; the difference is subtle but key to attracting their different target audiences.  A common objective for many loyalty schemes, particularly for offline businesses, is to capture customer details such as contact information and other additional demographic data. Online businesses will often have access to these details as part of their customer registration process, but could use a loyalty scheme as a tool to gain even deeper customer insight.

Third, knowing the client inside out is crucial to keeping a loyalty scheme fresh and ensuring the rewards remain appropriate.  A scheme must provide clear benefits for members and deliver added value in terms of financial rewards, customer service and the member experience.  Therefore it is critical your scheme collects relevant data that you can act upon quickly.  It must also offer members a better service than their non-member counterparts. 

Once you have customers earning rewards for loyalty, you are still only half way there.  To build a truly loyal customer base, redeeming rewards has to be simple.  Customers increasingly like to redeem rewards via the same channel with which they have initially engaged with the brand.  Online is obviously critical, while QR codes, mobile apps and NFC (near field communication – i.e. mobile phones chipped for quick transactions) are becoming more popular as the mobile platform develops. Customers now expect instant in store reward redemption to complement purchases.

For smaller companies considering a loyalty scheme but with concerns about cost and operational burden, working in partnership with carefully selected partners can offer a satisfactory solution.   However there are issues to consider such as diluting a strong brand, information leaks or customers receiving irrelevant offers.  It is crucial that brands are compatible. 

Loyalty schemes at their best should deliver for both sides.  If a loyalty scheme is well planned, expertly executed and consistently improved, the subsequent gain in revenue should far outweigh the running costs.  But never forget, a bad customer experience will always cause damage however many points or gifts you offer the customer.  If you neglect the customer experience, your reward scheme is doomed to failure.

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 - Totally HR

Rain rain rain, miserable. But nothing cheers us up more at Bizvits than publishing a new website for a new client! Business Vitamins were approached by the Director of Totally HR to design them a new website. They were looking for a 100% bespoke design (check), no cheesy graphics (check), no complex or "out there" conceptual themes (check).

Of course the new site also had to position their business as a quality service provider, (check) utilise their existing logo and colourways (check) and most of all perform FAR better (for SEO) than the previous site ever did in the Google rankings (check!).

We're really happy with how the site turned out,  and more importantly we know the client is delighted too.

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

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 - 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.

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Suffolk Marketing Blog - Moves With Care

Happy New Year! New Year, New website launch - this time for a rather unusual business. Moves With Care, are the only business in East Anglia offering a "senior relocation service".


Moves With Care approached Business Vitamins when it became clear their old website was simply not fit for purpose. It was an old design and simply wasn't performing well on Google. So, as well as a bespoke design and build, Business Vitamins assisted with the rewriting of the web content and also optimised the HTML tags to bolster the SEO friendliness of the site. The result? Two new enquiries almost immediately after launch.

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 - Danbred UK

Business Vitamins are really pleased to announce we've published yet another website! There's nothing like local business, and these guys (Danbred International) are "quite literally" a stones throw away, being based in our home village of Bacton, Suffolk.

It's not all old fashioned farming up here though, oh no. DBi are seriously high-tech, involved with the importing and development of Danish pig stock to produce top quality British farmed pork. Follow the link above to read more - warning - you might want to dig out some of your 'A' level biology notes beforehand... as I said, VERY technical!


Business Vitamins managed all the design, build, contributed to the photography and also assisted in writing some of the copy. The project tied into the creation of a folder and a number of small brochures, designed to promote different aspects of their business.


The website also includes a discussion forum, hosted on the DBi web server.


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 - Blackrock Consulting

We at BizVits towers are very pleased to announce the launch of another client website. This time, for a search and selection consultancy with UK offices in Kent and Bedfordshire, Blackrock Search. Simple, eye catching and informative were the keywords we were to consider when designing the site.

And whilst it may be a modestly sized site, it certainly looks the part and adds to their branding very nicely!

Business Vitamins designed and built the site from scratch, with just the company logo to work from! What could we do for 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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Quote: ”Advertising Doesn’t Work!”

As a business owner who regularly attends many networking meetings, this is a phrase I often hear; particularly, I’ve noticed, after introducing myself as owning a marketing agency.

I tend not to speak furiously about the finer points of my industry at such meetings, but this response always intrigues me. So, a few questions:

Q: What makes you say that? A: We spent [insert fee here] on advertising and never got a single lead from any of the adverts.
Q: Was there a tracking mechanism in place? A: Blank expression/please explain?

A device to ensure that when there are phone/email enquiries they can be traced back to the marketing tactic that generated the enquiry. A: No, not really.

This is interesting – without this, even if there WAS a response the business in question wouldn’t know it had come from that advert.

Q: Where did you advertise? A: [insert name of publication here].

The number of times we hear that businesses have advertised in a generic publication or newspaper that isn’t specifically aimed at their desired target audience is incredible! I suspect I know why it happened, often that “last minute deal” the ad-exec called about. Ignore the price; if it’s the wrong place to start with, why would you want to place an advert there?

Q: What was the messaging about? A: Um, it was about our product / service.

No one cares about your product or service. What they DO care about is resolving an issue or problem of theirs, which may or may not be resolved by using your product or service. The solution is to promote the benefit, not the feature. For example, an accountant might advertise how using their services saves their clients time and possibly reduces their tax burden because the accountant knows the right tax loopholes.

Q: Was it quite wordy? A: Well, yes, we have a lot to say about our [insert product/service name here].

Again, few will care enough to read it. Make any blurb on adverts short and punchy. Less is most definitely more. If there is some small print, fine, make it small or ask people to look at it online instead of including it on the advert!

Q: What was the imagery like? A: Oh, it was a picture of our product / stock photo of someone in a suit. Smiling.

There is a place for a product photo in an advert, but why not have it as an inset? The remaining space can then be used to “sell the dream”, which is marketing speak for promoting the benefit again. Example, you sell taps – show a GORGEOUS bathroom, not a picture of a tap. Services are harder to illustrate, but again, think out of the box and sell the dream. If it’s conceptual ensure it’s not so off the wall that no-one gets it. Try to tie in with the main headline.

And so it continues, after which people start to consider that actually there might be more to this advertising lark after all.

At the risk of re-hashing a guide to advertising theory, failed advertising usually falls into one of 5 categories:

1. The advert has been poorly designed, doesn’t focus on the potential customers requirements, but at least is in the right media location.
2. The advert is fantastic, but it’s in the wrong place to reach the desired audience.
3. The advert is fantastic, it’s in the right place, but has no tracking so you don’t know which of your adverts is working.
4. The advert is fantastic, it’s in the right place, it has a simple tracking mechanism... but it’s been booked as a one off. A series booking is FAR more effective.
5. Worst case, it's all wrong and there is no tracking. Of course the tracking part of this is moot anyway as there probably wouldn’t BE any enquiries!!

I once listened to a presentation by a local marketing expert (self proclaimed of course..) who advised her audience to stop advertising if it wasn't working and try something else instead. I would suggest analysing WHY the advertising isn’t working and then make changes accordingly. It's almost certainly fixable.

If advertising doesn’t work, why are there so many of them?

 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 trials of being a mumpreneur

I think it’s fair to say I’m struggling in the office today. Not because the work is difficult or clients are being awkward, but just because I’m tired. I have a three year old daughter who is usually a very good sleeper. However last night, she was awake from just after midnight until about six o’clock this morning.

When I dragged myself out of bed and staggered towards the shower, going into the office was the last thing that I wanted to do. The cosy warmth of the duvet was calling me back to bed. I was also concerned that maybe my daughter was sickening for something and might need her mum today. After all, she is only three. Staying at home with her was appealing.

On the other hand, I had one client who was waiting for their new website to go live before lunch. Another who needed our graphic design team to finalise the designs of their new corporate identity. I had three adverts to get to publishers and two press releases to sign off before distribution. My business needed me there too.

I’m lucky enough to have my husband as a business partner so I do have options. Our daughter is also in a good local nursery that understands our daily lives and the pressures we face. And, as it’s our own business, there’s no big bad boss to tell me off if I’m half an hour late into the office.

But some days it’s hard to be a business woman, wife, mother and daughter. As a business owner, hours are often not nine to five and I can’t guarantee when I’ll get home. I’d like to think I’m professional so my home life is not mentioned to clients. It’s not their problem if my little girl was up half the night. But I still need to be firing on all cylinders. All I can say is that life as a mumpreneur isn’t all four hour days, relaxed lunch meetings and nipping off mid-afternoon to do the school run as some might think.

Thank god for make up to hide the black bags under my eyes and good quality coffee to keep them open.

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 | How Unprofessional!

I recently found myself chatting with someone at a local business networking lunch. We began to talk about the various events we attend and were surprised our paths had never crossed before. The gentleman in question mentioned one particular business breakfast, but quickly continued with; ‘But that’s only for professionals’. The patronising words ‘so not for you my dear’ were implied but not spoken aloud.

An hour or so later I was driving back to the office and was still thinking about his comment. I felt extremely irritated. There were two things playing on my mind. First, why is marketing often not recognised as a profession and second, being professional is surely about the individual?

Because I’m a marketer, I was not ‘a professional’ in this man’s eyes. Yet, I’ve studied for a number of years; I have a degree and professional qualifications. Clients come to me because of my knowledge and experience to help their businesses grow. But this individual who is a banker/lawyer/accountant/ (delete as you see appropriate) does not see my profession as on a par with his own.

Most people can begin their working lives as an accounts or legal clerk if they so choose, but it takes time and dedication to qualify. Anyone can take a position as a marketing executive, but again, it takes determination and effort to gain Chartered status. Surely, if a person has studied, passed exams and is paid to give advice in their chosen field, they are a professional.

This individual had clearly not considered how five little words allowed me to draw my own conclusions about him. I felt very insulted by his one throw away comment. I cannot change his opinion about Marketing as an industry. To him, it is not a bone fide profession and never will be. However, he considered himself a professional purely on the grounds of his job title. But to me at least, he certainly did not come across as such.

In my opinion, to be a professional goes far beyond the industry sector in which you work. It means being a qualified and experienced expert in your chosen field; giving easy to understand explanations and honest advice. It’s about keeping up to date with the latest developments in your industry. It’s about passing on the benefit of your experience to the next generation. It also means ensuring others never feel inferior or less important than you. It’s about putting clients at their ease and forming relationships built on trust and mutual respect.

There is definitely more to being a professional than industry sector and wearing a dark-coloured suit. After all, those who are members of the oldest profession rarely have letters after their names...

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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