May 07

social media is not for me

By Scrundwell Marketing, Social media, Web No Comments

It’s a common refrain we often hear from our B2B clients. We also get told “ Facebook and Twitter are OK for your hotel clients, but nobody in our business is into all this sort of thing.”

Recently DLK Partners became the ‘in-house marketing department’ for fresh produce traders Rush Group. One of the remits was to increase their exposure in the marketplace, not only to attract new customers but also new growers. We had previously worked with the Group and had designed and built their original website. However after five years, the site was looking a little tired and out of date.

We created a proposal that would provide them with a new responsive website and to run their social media campaign. Initially Rush was dubious about what social media could do for them. They stated that the fresh produce industry, especially the vegetable sector, was not into digital marketing, and that it would all be a waste of time and money. However they decided to take DLK Partners’ advice and in their words “give social media a go”, and the good news is that nine months on from the initial tweet and posting, Rush has become a convert to social media.

So how did this happen?

Industry Knowledge

DLK Partners has immersed themselves into the fresh produce industry; in order to give them the level of understanding that is required to carry out an effective social media programme. This continuing education process enables DLK to post/tweet etc., on the Group’s behalf, without having to double check everything with their client and thus waste valuable time.

Quality not Quantity

There is a school of thought which states that your social media campaign can only be quantified successful by how many followers/likes you have. If you are a celebrity or a populist brand this might be true, but if you are a niche B2B company, this could not be further from the truth. Admittedly, if you only have a tiny following you are not going to make much of an impact, but a following of 100+ targeted and relevant companies and individuals can make a real impact on your business. With such numbers in your social media circle, it allows you to carry out meaningful business discussions, rather than have your marketing diluted by people who just make up the numbers.

Content

Content is king, whether on your blog/news feed or your social media channels. There is no point in coming to the social media arena if you have got nothing to say. What you say is of course completely up to you, but DLK Partners believes that in a B2B environment, any comments that are too personal (to the person not the business) is a bit of a waste of time. Content should always try to be as relevant and current as possible, social media is a fast moving medium and commenting on something a month after it has happened just makes you look out of touch.

Proactive vs Reactive

Social media content, generally speaking, can be divided into two distinct categories: Proactive and Reactive. A good balance of these is important for on-going success; proactive posts are ideal for strategic marketing and brand building, whereas reactive posts are ideal for raising your profile and keeping your company at front of mind. To ensure Rush Group’s social media campaign keeps on the right track, DLK Partners plans the Group’s proactive presence on a monthly basis and then continually monitors the appropriate channels for reactive opportunities and activities.

The combination of all these five points has turned a company that felt social media was useful but not for them, into a company who values and respects this marketing medium as they have seen, first hand, the tangible benefits it has brought their company.

If you think your business could benefit from a targeted social media campaign, please contact DLK Partners today.

Nov 14

Promoting luxury – selling interior deisgn

By Scrundwell Copywriting, Design, Marketing No Comments

From a marketing and design point of view working with clients in the luxury services industry, such as interior design, throws up a number of issues. Interior design companies, usually come to us with a wonderful selection of images of the work but don’t know what to do with them – as even though they are obviously talented and creative people they usually, but not always, have a problem marketing themselves beyond an on and off-line portfolio of past work.

DLK Partners, by no means has all the answers to help our creative clients, but we have found over the past few years, asking the right question in the right way, usually helps. Most recently we have worked with Pod Interior Style to re-design their web site, www.podinteriorstyle.com, previously the owner had run the interior design service as an add-on service to her luxury lifestyle shop in Lymington, but had decided that due to the success of that side of the business to focus her efforts purely on interior design. On our first meeting, our client was rather taken aback that we did not want to spend the first meeting looking at samples of her work, but actually talk about her instead.

Creating a personality

We asked questions that helped create a business personality, so the website would reflect Pod Interior Style and not her own clients. Amongst the many questions we asked were:

Why do people come to you?
Why would people not come to you?
What type of client would you dream of having?
What type of client is of no interest to you?
How would you describe your interior design?
What is your approach to customer service?

The last question on this list is crucial as when dealing with high net worth clients, your service standards need to be above average, and this is something that Pod Interior Style really excelled at, but was not even mentioned on their old website.

Our client also had a refreshingly open attitude to interior design, and felt it was not Pod’s place to impose a house style on her clients; her job was to make their dreams a reality. Rather like her attitude to customer service, she had never thought of putting this approach at the forefront of her marketing materials.

Selling – the dirty word?

In the world of luxury services – how do you sell without appearing downmarket? Our client was not alone in wanting to maximise her fees and profits, but did not want to appear like a second-hand car salesman. We asked her what aspects of her service offering, apart from the pure interior design, made her the most money – the answer was getting involved with any design and production of bespoke furniture.

We therefore made sure that this aspect of her business was mentioned on the ‘About Us’ page of the new website, so any new or existing client would pick-up on this additional service.

How to make your portfolio a marketing tool

All the above comments withstanding, an Interior Designer’s off and on-line portfolio is a key element in their marketing tool kit. However it could and should be more than just a series of photographs – however beautiful. It is important to stamp your own personality on your portfolio – one way in which we advise our clients to do this is to write a short paragraph/case study alongside each project explaining how their approach made the project successful. Rather than just describe what is in the picture, explain why your interior design company’s unique approach might have helped the project come in under budget, or maybe how you overcame a tricky technical problem. Whatever you write make sure it reflects your skills and approach.

To conclude….

Ensure all your marketing materials reflect your company and not just your clients
Highlight your approach – remember that you are offering a service
Be subtle, but don’t be afraid to sell
Make your portfolio a marketing tool and not just a collection of images
Ensure there is a consistent brand personality across all your marketing items.

Aug 02

Basic marketing and design guidelines for e-shots

By David Emarketing, Marketing No Comments

DLK Partners has recently been sending out a series of e-shots as part of our on-going business development plan. The e-shots have, even if we say so ourselves, proved to be rather successful, as we decided to take our own advice for a change.

Make life easy for yourself

Unless you are desperate to break into a new industry sector, it is advisable to concentrate on an area in which you have proven experience. We so far have focused on our experience in marketing and design for the property and luxury yacht sectors, as we have good case studies that successfully demonstrate our experience in these areas.

Targeted marketing list

Take the time to make sure that you have a targeted database, made up of people who want to receive your e-shot, as well as being decision makers. There is no easy way of compiling these lists, it takes hard work, persistence and patience, but a poor database will lead to poor results from your e-shots. It also goes without saying that all your databases should comply to all the most up to date data protection laws.

The right content and design

It seems obvious, but the quality of the design and content of your e-shot is paramount. The old adage – a picture paints a thousand words- has never been more poignant. Text heavy e-shots are a real turn off; we always try to limit our e-shots to one simple clear message that is then backed up by excellent images of our work. To expect that the recipient is going to actually read everything you have written is either naïve or arrogant.

Don’t fall at the first hurdle

The title or subject of the e-shot is another important element, as this is the first thing the recipient will see. Don’t try to be too clever, and whatever you do, don’t be misleading, if your sales e-shot does not live up to or match the subject/title then all you will do is alienate people and end up damaging your company’s reputation.

Send them at the right time

The last thing you want is for your carefully written and designed e-shot to languish for days in somebody’s in-box, all because you sent it at the wrong time. There is no exact science to this, all it take is just some common sense, ask yourself the question when would you be most responsive to receiving a sales-led e-shot?

Follow it up

Unless you are truly fortunate, most e-shots need a bit of help to turn into actual new business or sales. Unless your e-shot is offering a discount, reduced rate etc, it is more than likely that if you are selling a service that you will need to call the recipient a few days after the e-shot has been sent. This approach adds a personal touch, and allows you to engage with a potential new client, which in turn will help move the business relationship onto the next stage.

If you think your marketing and design could be working harder for, please contact David Liney at dliney@wordpress-188329-571014.cloudwaysapps.com, and we would be happy to offer our professional opinion.

Apr 11

Cross-fertilisation helps potato sales grow

By Scrundwell Copywriting, Marketing, Web No Comments

Here at DLK Partners we do like a challenge…

Our client Rush Group, top potato traders, enlisted our help and then at our first meeting told us that they didn’t know what we could do for them, as the vegetable industry doesn’t do marketing!

To prove or disprove this point, we took an early morning trip down to New Covent Garden Market in Vauxhall to investigate further. Walking through all the market stalls, it seemed, unsurprisingly that Rush Group were right, the vegetable traders were real ‘stick in the muds’ when it came to any form of promotional marketing. However, the fruit stalls were bursting with all types of marketing items – posters, flags, leaflets – you name it, they had it on their stalls. When we discussed this with Rush Group, they agreed that the vegetable industry was stuck in the dark ages and that of course had to change.

DLK Partners do not believe in each industry having its own marketing and design rules – in fact we believe the more creative and strategic cross-fertilisation you can engage in, the better the results. Therefore we approached the humble potato, in particular the new French variety Amandine, from a distinctly lifestyle point of view.

Rush Group were keen to raise the profile of this luxurious tuber, as outside specialist circles it was relatively unknown, and they had a load sitting in cold storage they were keen to shift them. Our first task was to brand Amandine potatoes as something desirable, special and high quality. We did this by playing on the ‘French’ aspect of the potato, by using the country’s national colours and traditional Art Nouveau style typeface as the basis for the Amandine identity, alongside some specially commissioned photographs and the strapline – ‘The superior French salad potato’. In fact we treated this potato as we would do any of the other luxury items and services we work with on a daily basis.

The next task was to find the hook – something to create some energy and interest. The solution – run a competition to find the best original recipe that used Amandines as its main ingredient. We created a promotional pack that would be handed out via the wholesalers to their end customers, which included small shops, restaurants, old people homes and hotels. This pack included, sample recipes, posters and an information leaflet, all encouraging people to post their original recipes on Rush Group’s website, with the best recipe winning a cookery course at one of London’s top cookery schools.

The campaign is still running, but from all the positive feedback we are getting, Rush Group’s Amandine campaign is certainly causing a stir, as rules have been broken and lines have been crossed – but all in a good way of course.

Being the first to do something is both exciting and daunting, but we believe that it should not be used as a reason for not doing it. Luckily for DLK Partners, our client agreed with us and backed our marketing initiatives all the way and was prepared to look at their business from a new angle.

Marketing