Back in 2013, I worked with CDI Alliance on Sheffield’s CDI New Opportunities Programme. The programme was set up by Creative Sheffield, who wanted to focus some of their business support funding on the city’s growing Creative and Digital Sector. The idea of the programme was to provide some really targeted, bespoke support that would help existing businesses to grow.
Unsurprisingly, many of the businesses I met had similar and familiar challenges: access to funding, planning for growth, recruiting the right people, managing time and resource and, of course, marketing.
The challenge for TigerNash was how to deliver some useful marketing support within the tight time constraints of the programme. I opted for a combination of focused workshops and one-to-one sessions. The content of both the workshops and the sessions was developed entirely in response to the needs of the businesses in the programme. The workshops concentrated on answering these four questions:
- Do I know who my customers are?
- Do I know how my product/service solves a problem for my customers?
- How do my customers find out about my product/service?
- Can I tell a compelling story to my customers about why they should buy from me?
In the one-to-one sessions, I worked with businesses on topics such as:
- How do we create a practical marketing strategy for our business?
- How do we decide which marketing tactics to use and how do we budget for them?
- How can we make sure our website is communicating the right messages to our target audiences? (Even CDI businesses find this a challenge.)
- What kind of language and tone of voice should we use to best engage with potential clients?
- How do we “productise” a service offering to make it easier for customers to understand?
When the programme ended, I received a lot of positive feedback. Interestingly, the comment I heard the most was along the lines of, “It’s been so useful to take time out to think about my business and have someone to talk to about it. I’m always so caught up in doing the work that I rarely get a chance to think about where I’m going.”
If that sounds familiar, perhaps we should make time for a chat? Getting in touch is just a click away.