Name: Neill Vandenberg
Business: SalesGossip
Job title: Digital marketing manager
Website: www.salesgossip.co.uk
Neill is the rising star at SalesGossip. As digital marketing manager he is responsible for continuing our rapid growth in traffic and registered users - not easy given our rapid growth over the last two years.
But Neill has excelled. He thinks outside the box, comes up with great ideas, and successfully implements them. As a startup, it’s exactly what we need.
Here’s an example of him doing just that. For SalesGossip’s student acquisition programme we wanted to strengthen the student segment of our database. But students are commercially savvy and don’t like to be commercially targeted so we needed to think outside the box.
Neill came up with the “design a tote bag” idea that resulted in a viral campaign. As part of the programme, he recruited a panel of respected judges and professors teaching relevant fashion and design subjects, and partnered with student organisations and websites to promote the competition.
He also took the lead with our PR agency and our in-house social media team to maximise visibility. It was a huge success.
We received more than 100 designs from students across the UK. We shortlisted the top ten and opened it up to a public vote where the student with the most votes won. The campaign went viral.
We registered more than 10,000 votes in one month, all generated organically by the shortlisted students promoting their designs to their communities, and all voters signing up to SalesGossip. The winner received 200 tote bags with their design and public recognition. Now we have a number of retailers who want to sponsor the next competition, proving its success and industry-impact.
Nominated by Niamh O’Grady is head of communications at SalesGossip.
