Business is tough at the moment and small businesses have to think beyond their next piece of work. It’s interesting to hear directly from businesses about their challenges in terms of creating new business opportunities; which is why we’re pleased to hand over this blog post over to Christopher Eades, director of AA Eades and Son.

“We’re a small local building firm based in Newbury and for us having that steady flow of business coming in is vitally important. Over the years we have built a fantastic reputation locally for quality workmanship at competitive pricing.  Whilst business is still okay, with the downturn in economy I felt it was important to look at new ways to seek out new business rather than just rely on word of mouth.

I was discussing my situation with a friend who in the past has used email marketing and suggested that I tried it.  I was sceptical at first; could it really help me and directly bring me business?  I thought I would seek out a company to talk to and was recommended by another friend to speak to Generate UK. As you can tell I often go on recommendation!

I contacted Generate UK and sat down with them to look at the possible options available. We haven’t got a website, this is something that we are thinking about, and so I thought the online activity was limited in terms of where I could send people to so we opted for a direct response.

We decided to trial an email marketing campaign and as I mentioned after being pretty cynical I have to say I’ve been very pleased with the results. We invested in two thousand local contacts and Generate UK designed and sent out a personalised email campaign promoting our company and the services we offer with a promotion attached.

As a result we received 137 responses and 18 of these have turned into positive enquiries which we have quoted business for.  The great thing about the campaign is that Generate initially tested a batch of 50 to analyse how the message was received and the response it had. The initial message was tweaked only slightly and the main message was sent. It was a text based communication that was personalised with the recipients’ first name and signed off by me with my personal email address.

The campaign has more than paid for itself and I am teeing up another one in the near future.”

Christopher Eades – Director, AA Eades and Son

Thank you Generate UK!

Email marketing is now one of the most cost effective ways to market to your potential customers; as a result, it is no surprise that the UK market grew from a value of £221m in 2007 to an estimated £274m in 2008. Despite the economic doom and gloom, this growth is expected to rise further in 2009.

For more information on email marketing click here or to speak with one of Generate UK’s internet specialists about building a direct response campaign please call 01635 550431

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