East Lancs businesses reaping huge benefits from social networking

NEWS RELEASE: 19.07.2010

EAST Lancs-based businesses have been ahead of the national picture when it comes to adopting social media to promote themselves, according to a local businessman.

Julian Jordan, MD of Pendle marketing and PR business, BrandSpankin’ has been running training courses for businesses to show them how to use PR and social media to enhance their marketing efforts at little or no cost – and with over 50 businesses having attended the courses this year, over half have come from the East Lancashire area.

“When it comes to using Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn to promote themselves, East Lancs businesses are definitely early adopters,” said Julian. “We’re also finding that many local businesses are benefitting from using blogs and Youtube channels to enhance their more traditional approaches to marketing.”

Prior to setting up BrandSpankin’ in Pendle, Julian managed marketing and media relations for telecoms businesses in London and Manchester, and he thinks that whilst these sorts of bigger businesses are missing a trick, small and regional businesses are adopting social media techniques to market themselves very cheaply, whilst being able to measure the effects and successes of their campaigns.

“In the current climate, social media is great for small businesses because it’s free and effective. It’s much more about having a dialogue with customers and prospects, than shouting your message at them. This is why I think it works really well for a lot of East Lancs based small businesses, as they have always traded on the basis of giving a good service and building a relationship with customers, so the tone of social media really suits them.”

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BrandSpankin’ new approach to promoting your business.

PENDLE marketing business BrandSpankin’ (http://www.brandspankin.co.uk) has launched a radical new marketing solution to help east Lancs businesses make more money.

Mobile or proximity marketing operates using mobile handsets that have Bluetooth enabled, allowing business to send messages, discount codes and special offers to people who are in the immediate vicinity, allowing businesses to pull in people who might otherwise just pass by.

The UK has more active mobile contracts than people and over 90 per cent of handsets have Bluetooth functionality – potentially giving businesses unprecedented levels of access to foot fall that they would otherwise miss out on.

“Open rates” for this form of mobile marketing are in the region of 13 per cent, whereas traditional small business marketing techniques such as door drops, direct mail or flyers can typically have as little as a 0.5 per cent response rate.

Julian Jordan, MD of BrandSpankin’ said: “We’ve spent ages trying to source the best mobile marketing solution and we’ve been really impressed with the kit we’ve got. It’s really robust and the reporting it can deliver is superb.”

“Unlike a lot of traditional marketing forms you can really measure the effect of this approach and see an unprecedented return on your marketing budget. This kind of solution makes massive sense for small businesses such as bars, clubs and taxi businesses – but equally larger enterprises like football clubs, supermarkets and concert venues can see huge and immediate responses.”

BrandSpankin' enters the blogmosphere!

Welcome to the BrandSpankin' Blog for all things connected with Marketing, Graphic Design, Web and Media Relations - all with an East Lancs twang. And just now and then, we might ski 'off-piste' and comment on this, that or the other.

Just a few things for starters:-

- We're keeping our fingers crossed for Burnley who play Reading tonight in the second leg of the Championship play offs. Come on you Clarets.

- Before that we'll be in attendance at the Chamber of Commerce event at Stanley House in Mellor.

In the meantime, I'm just off to try to claim parliamentary expenses on my Prince Albert...

www.brandspankin.co.uk