12 minute read
Worcestershire Works Well
Visitors to the NHS City Art Trail including Sanctuary Group
NHS CITY ART TRAIL A GREAT SUCCESS
Advertisement
Throughout May, people across Worcester took part in the Now We're Talking With Art trail through the city, spreading positivity, highlighting mental health support and supporting local businesses.
Last week, the Time to Change Champions from Sanctuary Group, part of the Time to Change Worcestershire Employers Group, took part in the Now We’re Talking With Art trial through Worcester City Centre. This campaign aims to spread positivity, highlight mental health support and encourage people to get out, exercise and support local businesses and artists. The Department for International Trade team at the Herefordshire & Worcestershire Chamber of Commerce also joined in the fun, celebrating Mental Health Awareness Week by following the Art Trail. Gail Dendy de Santos, International Trade Advisor, said: “It was great to get outside, see my colleagues in person and to have a chat along the way. The rain even stopped for us!” If you missed out on the Worcester trial, don’t worry! The trial will be moving to Redditch in July and Hereford later in the summer. To find out more information you can visit
www.healthyminds.whct.nhs.uk/nwt-art.
SAVE THE DATE – THE NEW WORLD OF WORK
The next Worcestershire Works Well bi-annual event is set to take place on Tuesday 14 September where recently accredited organisations will be recognised and an update on the Worcestershire Works Well programme will be provided. For those businesses who are looking to find out more about how they can develop their workplace health and wellbeing offering, this event will be the ideal place to find out more. The Bi-annual event will discuss the new world of work and how in a post-covid working environment businesses can support their staff’s mental health and wellbeing. The event will also see a number of speakers discussing various topics based around how employers can spotlight workplace wellbeing and take care of their staff, new styles of leadership, legal aspects of remote working and how we can support workers mental health.
There will also be opportunities to network with other attendees and share best practises. More information will be released in the coming weeks, keep up to date via the Chamber events and training calendar here: hwchamber.co.uk/events-and-
training-calendar.
Lunchtime at the Orchard
PITMASTONS PRIMARY SCHOOL ACHIEVES LEVEL 1 ACCREDITATION
Pitmastons Primary School have become the latest organisation to sign up for the Worcestershire Works Well accreditation. The free accreditation scheme is designed to support businesses to improve health and wellbeing of their employees which has shown to improve productivity and profitability. Assistant Headteacher, Jane Lyons, said: “Pitmaston Primary School are thrilled to have achieved Level 1 of the Worcestershire Works Well scheme. Pupil and staff mental health and wellbeing has been the priority of our school development plan for a couple of years now and we are committed to ensuring we keep up to date with initiatives, ideas and strategies to support every single member of our staff team. “Working beyond an educational framework has been an incredibly useful process as we have been encouraged to think differently about the health and wellbeing of all staff in school. We look forward to continuing our work in this area, which given the current climate, is an essential part of our role in school.” Employees can play a vital role in improving the health and wellbeing of workers, this could include ongoing health promotion, raising awareness of specific health issues and supporting and encouraging healthy lifestyles. To find out more please visit
www.worcestershire.gov.uk/ worcestershireworkswell.
TIME TO TONE UP YOUR MARKETING POLICY
The way we do business has certainly changed and, as sure as night follows day, the way we go about business-to-business marketing has got to be recalibrated too.
In short, is your marketing policy fighting fit – is it up to the challenges that lie ahead? We’re working from home, if not all the time, then probably most of the time. Our meetings are on Zoom or Teams or some such. Our conversations are on WhatsApp or Messenger. And our marketing … well, where is that happening? How and where should it be happening as we emerge tentatively into our new, post-pandemic world?
START AT GROUND ZERO
This is the time to re-evaluate your marketing strategy, from root to branch to anticipated fruits. How effective was it before Covid-19 and lockdown? Did it produce the results you wanted? If not, why not? Moving on, into 2021, can you define what effect the changes of the past year have had on your business, and are likely to have going forward? Has the way you communicate and interact with clients changed, and have you had to modify the way in which you deliver services? These answers are key to producing a crystal clear and, importantly, realistic marketing strategy that will support the latest evolution of your business – a marketing plan that your staff can both sign up to and deliver.
RECOGNISE THE VALUE OF DIGITISATION
If it wasn’t true before Covid, it certainly is now: the fully digitised business is king! B2B marketing is increasingly about the creative content strategy at its heart and the means by which it will draw in and engage with customers, old and new. The greater the digital weaponry at an entrepreneur’s disposal, the greater the rewards they will reap. But it is also the case that the way in which the collective power of websites, social media, digital adverts, emails and virtual presentations – in short, all forms of digital advertising – is wielded requires a heightened degree of sophistication nowadays.
BE HUMAN
Yes, we work in a digital world, but at the end of the day we’re not promoting and selling our wares to robots. There are real people at the other end of that datalink! Key to a successful strategy are the empathetic and personable overtones that make would-be customers feel like you are talking directly to them. That is the starting point for a long-term relationship born of customer loyalty and trust. Nurturing existing clientele has emerged as a priority in B2B marketing – a grateful response, perhaps, to those who have stuck with us through thick and thin. Social media is the perfect platform, of course, through which to not only stay in touch, but to personalise the contact and nurture the loyalty. Post articles or snippets of information that educate customers about your latest product, notify them of new appointments and achievements, and provide a user-friendly means of taking questions ‘from the floor’. Be relevant, be friendly, use humour when appropriate, put up interesting pictures. In short, give customers every reason to keep in touch. You are pushing at an open door.
CRUNCH THAT DATA
It can be hard to get the true measure of the effectiveness of your advertising when it’s happening across more than one digital platform. This is where all-in-one social media management and analytics solutions or customer relationship management (CRM) software come into their own. Designed to help you collate and publish automated campaigns across multiple digital platforms at once, they also gather the relevant data afterwards – who’s read your advert, when and where? And most importantly of all, did that convert into a sale?
MARKETING EXPERTISE FROM A TEAM THAT REALLY CARE.
We Are Marketing has traditionally worked with large corporates and charities, developing effective marketing plans to engage and retain customers. Since March 2020, when the pandemic took hold, small to medium sized businesses have turned to them to help support their marketing activity.
Their team of marketing experts support businesses who know they should be reviewing their marketing activity, but simply don’t have the time to make it happen. We Are Marketing listen, research and understand the business goals, the market in which the business operates in, the competitor scene and, most importantly, who their existing and potential audiences are. From here We Are Marketing can help shape an effective marketing plan tailored to the audience, the internal resource, and the budget available. Understanding your existing customer base is crucial in growing that audience and helping to pinpoint new audiences. Often businesses know this well, but don’t have the time to really understand why their customers engage with them or to identify new, prospective customers. Knowing this is key to developing messages that articulate the need the business fulfils, in a way that resonates with customers. This messaging can be developed for the most appropriate channel to maximise reach. We Are Marketing support small to medium businesses in a variety of ways, from workshops helping define ‘Why you’ to your audience, to developing ongoing marketing plans, reviewing, and optimising activity to becoming a virtual marketing department. Their set up is designed to scale easily depending on the requirements. Heather Westgate, Managing Director is passionate about marketing and wants to bring the team’s years of experience working for large companies to help businesses that don’t necessarily have the scope or budgets for a bespoke marketing department. As Heather says the best endorsement comes from their clients, “They gave me the tools and confidence to create a marketing strategy and template to determine who my customers were and how to find more of them”.
No time for marketing?
We Are Marketing do. You work hard, so we work hard to be the best support. Whether developing marketing plans, finding creative ways to engage your customers or just being your ‘virtual’ marketing team, we pride ourselves on our flexibility, agility and the ability to scale for any requirements. Whatever size of business, you still need a marketing plan that delivers to your business goals. We could tell you how amazing we are, but we think you’d prefer to hear it from our clients.
WAM bring enthusiasm, passion, energy, commitment, experience, strategic input – they make us think differently “ “ and help us to achieve our goals no matter how challenging they may seem. ” We would wholeheartedly recommend Heather for anyone looking for marketing advice with a friendly, professional and vibrant outlook. ”
HD Masonry
Head of Direct Marketing, Blue Cross
For an informal chat about how we could help, contact Heather
07976 266 101 heather@wearemarketing.co.uk
Whether working online or using more traditional tools such as print and events, truly effective marketing is much more than pushing information out, and hoping people respond.
We don’t just do your marketing - we grow your business.
We are a Worcester-based, full service, growth agency. We get you in front of your ideal customers, and show them how you can make their business work better and boost their bottom line. They will then be keen to start a conversation with you.
HOW DO WE DO THIS?
Well, how about fast-loading websites and social media content to help and support your potential clients, or perhaps PPC and re-targeted ads, that land right in front of them? Attending business events and expos? Set your visitors up for a truly memorable experience with online tools, graphics, print collateral and workflows to re-engage potential leads after the event. Print can be very effective too. If your B2B audience reads specific trade magazines, we’ll get you in there. Or how about your visuals? Our in-house team creates engaging graphic design that gets you noticed. Yet another example of Method’s ‘go deeper’ approach is aligning marketing, sales and service. Have you ever been involved in a bid, got on the shortlist, but then been pipped at the post by a competitor? Do you call the bid company a few months down the line to see how everything is going? Often, if things have not gone well with the winner, the company maybe be open to another conversation, after all, you’ve already been pre-qualified! Equally, do you talk to your customers about cross-selling and upselling? Once again, we can put workflows in place to reach these customers, while you carry on with the day job.
BUILDING YOUR BRAND
Business support from Method uses the most effective tools on the most direct channels and is measured and scored.
We help you get connected, bag a bunch of new clients and grow your business.
Sounds good? Great. Then we should talk.
Call - 01905 814038
Email - studio@hellomethod.co.uk
Visit - www.hellomethod.co.uk
DIGITAL MARKETING: CUTTING COSTS WITHOUT CUTTING CORNERS
Like many businesses, you may be preparing to welcome back visitors and start getting back to normal.
However, if you’ve had to cut costs over the last 18 months, you may not have much budget for marketing! Here are some simple tips to help you save money: 1. Use the power of social media Hopefully, you’ve carried on using social media throughout lockdown to keep your customers informed. Keep it up! If you’ve posted about reopening or a change to your opening hours, pin that to the top of your profile. Post-lockdown tip: use hashtags like #OpenForBusiness to make it clear you’re back! 2. Encourage customer loyalty with discounts and offers Everybody loves a special offer! A loyalty bonus, or a discount when you recommend a friend, is a great way to encourage repeat business and find new customers. Post-lockdown tip: if you’ve been closed for a while, this could help to tempt your regulars back and create new ones. 3. Create an email newsletter Email campaigns are fantastic for generating leads and revenue. If you’re not already using email marketing, get started now - building a subscriber base takes time. However, if you provide exclusive content and special offers they won’t find on your site, it won't take long for them to start signing up and spreading the word. Post-lockdown tip: include your reopening offers in your newsletter with an added incentive for subscribers. 4. Ask for reviews and testimonials Reviews and testimonials are one of the best ways to generate trust, and they're free! Don’t be afraid to ask your customers if they’ll leave a review - people often won't think to do so without prompting. Post-lockdown tip: recent reviews send an instant message that you’re open for business. 5. Done something newsworthy? Write a press release! Even if it's just the news that you're reopening after lockdown, that's of local interest! Put together a simple press release and send it to local news outlets with a photo and a quote. Post-lockdown tip: this is a great free route to local coverage of your reopening.
reallygooddigital.com
Find your digital voice!
Engaging your brand with audiences that matter.
www.be-everywhere.co.uk
E: info@be-everywhere.co.uk
T: 0191 580 5990
