Mike Warren, director of Cardiff-based Consultants Online, explains why the business should win the marketing and PR category of the Guardian Small Business Showcase competition.
To make our marketing campaign stand out from the crowd we chose an eye-catching image aimed directly at the type of customer we want to engage with.
Trying to satisfy a wide range of different needs is rarely effective. Splitting our customers into different groups of similar people enabled us to market our services specifically to the ones that are most likely to respond.
So we thought: “What does our customer look like?”
We identified groups with similar characteristics. Business customers were broken down into different industry sectors, so we were able to clearly understand what aspects of our service appealed to each of the groups. We then adapted our message to more closely match their requirements.
HR managers are a top priority for us. We developed a page on our website for them and we mailed out postcards asking people to take a look.
The combination of smart postcards, social media, newsletters and a website call to action worked well. A well-known HR consultancy spotted the campaign and invited us to work with them to provide their clients with Investors in People accreditation. This collaboration has already increased our sales by more than 15%.
All entries which meet the competition criteria are published and our judging panel select a shortlist of the three for each category. Winners are announced at an awards ceremony in summer 2016.
