No greater marketing excitement is watching the progression of an idea become a reality.
As you may know, Fresh Brew has been involved in developing a local Beaminster community website in the Dorset region. Subsequent to some hiccups which have resulted in local businesses feeling the pinch even more so, a team of people have grouped together to see what we can do to raise awareness of what we HAVE, as opposed to focus on what we have lost. As a result, the Beaminster Community Website was born.
Following in the footsteps of numerous other campaigns, the idea behind the website was to serve as an information portal which provided information not only to the local residents of the town, but to all visitors who were looking for places to see, places to eat, things to do, places to stay etc.
As the months have passed, the website has grown even more – with so many new avenues taking shape within the site. With a marketing cap on, we’ve been so excited to see how the website has moved from being non-existent in Google searches…. to appearing on page 4 … to moving up (s.l.o.w.l.y) towards page 2… and then finally, hitting page 1!
Our big challenge now, is to keep the content going – keep it updated – so that the Beaminster listing will move from number 4 on page 1, to number 1.
People underestimate the power of Content. Of a decent content strategy. In this case, as many of us were doing as a sideline to our 9-5 jobs… it was critical for us to have a clear game-plan about how we wanted to tackle this project. We wanted to keep it credible, but we also didn’t want to take something on that would soon, like many other “community” projects, appear outdated, tired and simply incorrect. The answer was to divide up all tasks to those who were already running similar channels of work / information. And it was only in doing that, that we, as a team, have been able to make this work.
The website continues to gather momentum. Our daily unique user number has risen from 9, to 45 on average, and has started to hit the 65 user mark. These are unique (NEW) users – not returning visitors.
For something that was non-existent before November 2012, I’d say that getting the site up and running, contributed to on a regular basis, and being recognised as a reputable source of information – all within 6 months – is not bad going at all.
I drive home to pick up a few things and go through the mental list of things I need to sort out in the hour break I have between meetings.
I am blessed. I live and work in one of the most beautiful parts of England. The rolling green hills and hedges guide my little Terios, adorned with South African memorabilia, to it’s next destination – Larcombes – to have a key cut, The Pharmacy – to pick up a prescription the doc has left there for us, and a quick nosey at what Lynette in the local patisserie has on her lunchtime nibbles counter.
I drive off with a home-made sausage role and a coeur d’amande – it seems perfect for this thunder-showery Friday.
It used to be often that I long for a past life of corporate structure, visionary product plans and extensive review meetings, but these occurrences are being slowly overshadowed by the joys of small-town living, countryside delving, and the thought of a forage for some wild garlic this evening to serve with the salmon.
This is Beaminster.
And it is great.
IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Beaminster launches brand new community website
Beaminster, 16 March 2013
Beaminster businesses and residents are proud to announce the launch of a brand new community website. After a year of challenges within the community, a group of businesses and residents grouped together to launch ideas that would promote Beaminster as the idyllic place to visit as well as promote the local services and suppliers to local residents.
With the first launch of the Be Local, Buy Local, Buy in Beaminster campaign, all businesses in Beaminster were encouraged to get involved in a promotion of the town’s services and supplies and the awareness of all that the town offers. All businesses were encouraged to put the Be Local, Buy Local posters in shop windows and a social media campaign was launched.
Following on from the success of the campaign launch, the group then got together to develop the town’s first community website. Recognising the need to have a central portal which local residents and businesses, as well as visitors, could access in order to obtain useful information about the history of the town, the businesses, events, town news, important links to other key organisations such as the Beaminster & District Business Chamber, the Beaminster Town Council and the Yarn Barton Centre.
The Beaminster Community Website also provides access to places to eat, drink and stay as well as various campaigns running throughout the town which people can become more involved in.
The launch of the website will be done mainly via Social Media, as well as via press and community notice boards. The Beaminster Community Website can be found at www.beaminster.net.
Social Media is both fascinating and daunting, creating a sky rocket of activity amongst construction-related companies in the last few years. Fascinating because of the wonder of the visible functionality of new marketing media and daunting because of the learning curve and time investment required.
And the pace quickens! Each month there seems to be some new app or technology appearing in our in-box. Our relatively new friends in the guise of media technologies have been developed to reach or communicate with a very wide audience. These amazing technologies available for architects and builders today will harness huge benefit for your own business. If we neglect them we are going to lose out on the potential to connect and engage with both an existing client base as well as a previously untouched audience.
Look Before You Leap
But beware, before you run headlong into trying to use the myriad of technologies available within the social media arena – stop and think!
What are the best and most effective tools for your building company or engineering practice? Use them well and use them wisely. Implement and then test the results. Review the available media and then either learn to use them or outsource to those in the know. It is certainly more cost effective and will be up and running in half the time.
You should start by drawing up your social media plan of action (another post) and then research the capability of each technology and how it fits in to your business plan (yet another post).
Social Media Is Social
I feel it is important to stress here that it is all about social media. Social media is about engaging, connecting and networking with others. Builders engage with architects and architects with engineers and so on. As people connect with you and you with them they will begin to discover how much they can trust you. We do business with people we trust. That’s my point.
A Social Media Revolution
We are seeing social media grow at an exponential rate. In my opinion we are not going to be experts in all of these technologies. So, my advice is to choose the best media for your own practice and run with it. If you choose Twitter and it best suits your business then learn how to use it well and develop your network. When you are reasonably proficient move on to learn another platform.
The Benefits
It is always good to do your homework when measuring if it is worth taking the plunge. In my personal opinion it is vital that social media becomes a part of your marketing mix. It provides excellent networking possibilities with work providers as well as with your peer group in construction.
I have researched some figures to help you understand the social media footprint in today’s world. Facebook has over a billion users with customers embracing social media as part of their lives including the over 50s who are adapting at staggering rates. In the UK alone over 30M active users on Facebook, 32M users on Youtube, 15M Twitter users and 10M using LinkedIn. If we conservatively say only 10% of business uses these platforms we have a huge audience and potential people base we can connect with and ultimately call customers. After all, that’s the aim of marketing. The world awaits you!
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John Langford
www.cmmuk.com
@ConstructionMM
Contact John on 0782 515 5165
About CMMUK
One of the best ways to market your business is through the nurturing of good working relationships.I guess that is why social networking and social media marketing is so popular today. It is a feather in our cap when we get a referral and hopefully this will happen often. However, in reality, relationships need to be cultivated and this will take time. This is where you might consider bringing in a freelance marketing consultant who will become a part of your team and help to develop your client base.
CMM will work with you in this process of developing good relationships with work providers. There is no hard sell here only the persistent and consistent contact process to achieve the purpose of new business opportunities. You can then get on to other aspects of business development and leave the marketing to us.
Fresh Brew Marketing are proud to have another feature on the Eat Balanced blog in their feature, 12 days till Christmas.
Our fabulous recipe for Thai Chicken and Mange Tout soup is a winner for winter! 🙂