Sister Led Business Showing the Power of Relationships to the Small Businesses of Lancashire
This year is an especially poignant year for sisters Nichola Howard and Jo Leigh as their business, Launch North West, celebrates its 10th Birthday.
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020 was going to be their year. The sisters had spent their Christmas break building a new master plan and this was the year they were finally going to see all the hard work growing their business pay off. The ambitious siblings had grown Launch North West from small beginnings running local artisan markets in 2012 to hosting over 25 networking events per year and co-ordinating three huge annual Business Expo’s by 2019. They had a regular customer base of over 300 businesses from across Greater Manchester and Lancashire and even reached an online audience of over 6 million with one of their Business Expo’s. By working with so many businesses at their expos they had come to realise that many businesses were struggling
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LANCASHIRE & NORTH WEST MAGAZINE
to take advantage of the massive opportunities presented by promoting themselves on the internet. Launch North West took its business expo model to Media City, hosting its first digital specific event helping business owners take advantage of social media marketing. The event was so successful Nichola and Jo were able to develop working partnerships with big name firms including Microsoft, Tech North Advocates, Motionlab, and Macclesfield gamification giants Matmi’s Jeff Coghlan. Following on from their success in Salford, the sisters took the show on the road the following year introducing The Digital Marketing Roadshow to Blackpool, Preston and Wigan. Nichola explains the reason why she was so committed to educating the businesses of the North West. “As a child of the 70’s I prefer physical connection and I didn’t really feel comfortable at first using the internet to build relationships with customers.” www.lancmag.com
