Small Business Remodelling

Take one small business owner struggling with website ownership and business relaunch. Add one MBA student and developer. Sprinkle with market research and a new approach. Put in oven for 5 months. Relaunch.

A friend wanted to relaunch his events business. He paid for a website but was struggling to get enquiries. To make matters worse, his web host decided to hold him ransom over an update and yearly renewal cost.

I offered to help by creating a new website for him.

It would be fresh, on trend, and create the impression he wanted. started researching other events companies in the area to see what competitors’ sites were like. A new site would need a new sales plan to compete.

Market Research

It was instantly obvious that there were 2 approaches. Some businesses relied on the call us for a quote approach and showed photographs of their events. Others displayed prices up front.

The business wanted to aim itself at the middle spend market, so weddings with a budget of over £10-15,000. I asked married friends and interviewed them to see what they looked for when choosing entertainment for their wedding (I’m a fan of the work of Steve Krug – just talk to the end-users and you’ll find a lot out).

I made a list of local competitors and e-mailed them asking for a quote to compare prices. Each came back with a quote and a list of extras (dancefloors, lighting< etc) and prices. I looked at which extras were the most commonly advertised and went in search of suppliers. The relaunch had very little capital to spend, so there was no money to buy extras. We needed someone who would rent them out.

New Suppliers

The next step was to define some packages to help customers decide what they wanted and what they could afford. To encourage customers to take more than just DJ services, I followed the Goldilocks principle and arranged the packages as:

Using the information from the competitor analysis I set the prices similar to competitors for the basic and basic plus packages. For the most popular and premium packages I calculated a profit margin which made it worth the extra time and effort needed to fetch, install, remove and return the extras. I also added in costs of hiring delivery vans depending on the size required and per mile figure.

There were two other markets my friend wanted to target: corporate events and general parties. I created similar packages using a similar model. Unfortunately, these were not for weddings and so there was no set or obvious offerings that could be made.

New Website

Armed with sales information I put together some sketches of the site.

The first idea was inspired by a Google Fonts comparison site which showcased fonts from Google against different colours and styles. Each story tried to capture an event, the mood and excitement and connect the company to those feelings. It showed how the business helped to achieve that experience. It was a single-page website which aimed to giving as much information by only scrolling down the page.

The second idea was an attempt to be less experiential-marketing and more in line with competitors’ sites. It had separate pages for each target market, a section for extras, delivery information, terms and conditions and a full WordPress blog. The second was a little less adventurous and similar to others, so designed as a safer bet. My friend preferred the second.

An unavoidable issue with the launch version of the site was images.

The supplier wasn’t happy for the site to use their images of extras, and some packages needed more illustration. Each target market page (weddings, corporate events, parties) had a section beneath the package listings to show some photos of packages or images of extras in use.

Instead I used a placeholder image of the song request software my friend used with customers, and an image of album covers. The intention was to change these as soon as possible.

Social media

To allow my friend to manage the social media himself, I created a strategy which detailed things like posting times, the tone/voice to use when writing and content ideas.

Having a blog on the site gives the company the ability to provide content and value for visitors and shows Google (or other search engines) that the site is fresh and often updated. It also allows the site to link to other sites, help to start building online reputation, and a place to put content which could be linked to in social media.

I created a WordPress blog on the site and created an account on www.buffer.com to automate the social media posting. I set Buffer to post to Google+, Twitter and Facebook using the timing schedule on the social media strategy, and populated Buffer and the blog with about 20 different posts.

The sample posts gave an idea of the suggested content and a voice or style to write in. On a 2 posts per week schedule, the samples gave just over 2 months to get used to it. I set up an account on www.feedly.com with some syndicated sites to keep an eye on for content ideas.

Initial Advertising Campaigns and Strategies

The second idea was an attempt to be less experiential-marketing and more in line with competitors’ sites. It had separate pages for each target market, a section for extras, delivery information, terms and conditions and a full WordPress blog. The second was a little less adventurous and similar to others, so designed as a safer bet. My friend preferred the second.

An unavoidable issue with the launch version of the site was images.

The supplier wasn’t happy for the site to use their images of extras, and some packages needed more illustration. Each target market page (weddings, corporate events, parties) had a section beneath the package listings to show some photos of packages or images of extras in use.

Instead I used a placeholder image of the song request software my friend used with customers, and an image of album covers. The intention was to change these as soon as possible.

Social media

To allow my friend to manage the social media himself, I created a strategy which detailed things like posting times, the tone/voice to use when writing and content ideas.

Having a blog on the site gives the company the ability to provide content and value for visitors and shows Google (or other search engines) that the site is fresh and often updated. It also allows the site to link to other sites, help to start building online reputation, and a place to put content which could be linked to in social media.

I created a WordPress blog on the site and created an account on Buffer to automate the social media posting. I set Buffer to post to Google+, Twitter and Facebook using the timing schedule on the social media strategy, and populated Buffer and the blog with about 20 different posts.

30 Amazing Wedding Venues

For some people a church just doesn’t cut it, and for those people the dedicated folks at StyleMePretty.com compiled a list of amazing venues. How kind!

http://www.stylemepretty.com/2015/04/27/30-amazing-wedding-venues

10 Tips for Writing Your Vows

For those brave souls who choose to write their own vows for the big day, Wedding Chicks are on hand to give you some helpful advice.

http://www.weddingchicks.com/10-tips-writing-vows

10 Top Tips for Setting a Gorgeous Table

Anyone need a little help styling a table for a party?

http://www.stylemepretty.com/2015/04/22/10-tips-for-setting-a-gorgeous-table

Bloody Orange Sunrise

As it’s nearly the weekend, for those who aren’t attending a party: how about making your own with this mouth-drooling cocktail?

http://chasingdelicious.com/bloody-orange-sunrise

Ellen and Portia Wedding Video

Some brides really are just breath-taking and some videos equally as memorable.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P3gLHGKFT8M

The sample posts gave an idea of the suggested content and a voice or style to write in. On a 2 posts per week schedule, the samples gave just over 2 months to get used to it. I set up an account on Feedly with some syndicated sites to keep an eye on for content ideas.

Initial Advertising Campaigns and Strategies

With a launch version of the website in place, the next step was to define some marketing strategies to get the site to new customers.

Metrics Gathering

Gathering metrics to measure performance where possible is essential. Obviously not everything can be measured. But there’s a lot that can. And it’s always wise to know how useful something was if you’ve spent money on it.

There are lots of ways of gathering figures for measuring return. The return on any marketing campaign can be difficult, but for an online business there’s loads of ways of finding out what effect something is having.

For any of the first advertising campaigns I wanted to find a way of producing a metric to show that the campaign had some effect. The obvious main metrics were bookings and enquiries, so recording and qualifying these metrics would produce obviously useful data.

Record and qualify a lead

Record and qualify interest or attention

Reach analysis

I sat down with my friend and we came up with a list of customers he wanted to reach such as wedding brides, planners, university graduation party organisers and venues. To get an idea of what to try first we listed ways of reaching the customers and costs. My friend had ran a small events business targeting weddings, so he was confident he could target that market.

For his relaunch, he wanted to get a wider reach pulling in business from a more diverse range of customers. Additionally, his previous business attracted weddings which were looking to keep costs low, so he wanted to aim for weddings with a larger budget.

The interviews I carried out helped get an idea of where expensive weddings looked for entertainment, but the reach analysis helped to clarify where the company could be targeting its marketing resources and what to try first.

We found costs and looked at other people’s experiences on the internet of the different methods of reaching customers. We look at the potential of each against the number of leads promised by each service providing the reach (wedding fayre footfall, directory leads per month for example). Based on cost and potential returns, we managed to shortlist a few things to try first.

Reach analysis

The first task to do was to setup Google Analytics. I set up some goals to measure how many visitors went through to price or contact pages, and some basic AdWords campaigns with an £75 free credit introductory offer (gained after spending £25).

I registered my friend for some free training from Google and went along with him to The Digital Garage in Birmingham Library (now closed) to help get him used to some of the ideas behind search and advertising. Additionally, I separately went to have the website technically reviewed for any issues. (They were really helpful and gave a few insights about some of the main things to help with ranking!)

With the £75 free credit we tried some simple AdWords targeting his local and surrounding counties. This gave us a little time to play with the campaign and see what initial results we got.

Google AdWords offers ad placement from the display network (inserting ads similarly themed sites) and the search network (alongside search results). The data was useful for seeing what kind of adverts worked best and where traffic came from. For example, we found that the display network pulled in traffic from the US which wasn’t useful, so we changed to only targeting the search network.

I showed my friend how to use some of the basic features of Google Analytics so he could see where he was appearing in ranking and how he could use the data to target AdWords campaigns.

Contacting venues

Second on the list was to find a way of getting onto hotel and venue recommended providers lists. I drew up a list of hotels and venues in the area the business wanted to operate and added contact details. My friend had someone who would cold-call the venues but we also wanted to put together a press pack that we could send out.

Sending press packs

I got a sample pack from the wonderful folks at Moo.com and we listed some of the things we thought would work well to get venues’ attention.

My friend set to work putting together the packs and seeing if venues would be happy to receive one using the list of contacts.

Wedding Fayres

The next task was to find a local wedding fayre to attend and to create a suitable stand to present the company. The idea would be to give out the packs at wedding fayres and show off a little of the company visuals, prices, give away from a few free CDs, or wedding theme ideas.

My friend had prior experience of wedding fayres with his previous company, so I left him to manage the preparation.

Networking

My last task was to look into networking options. I found some wedding planners and caterers who worked in the area and rang them to see if they’d be interested in a joint recommendation and linking on the site. Everyone I spoke to was happy receive a link to check out the site, and one followed up with an invitation to a local networking event.

I made the arrangements for the networking event and drew my part in the project to a close.

My friend was ready to relaunch his business.

Wrap Up

The project was fascinating to do. From the customer analysis, market research and interviewing people, to finding new suppliers, coming up with new sales models and creating a new website. It gave me a broad scope of how the business was going to run.

I was impressed at the help Google offered in terms of small business aid helping people manage their internet presence and the one-on-one help.

It was fulfilling and satisfying to be able to help someone improve their business and help a friend to create something they could be proud of and go on to grow. My time on the project inevitably had to come to an end at some point but given the time, it would’ve been fun to see how far the business could go.

I wish it all the best of luck achieving its goals.

Resources

Here are some links to the resources I used during the project in case anyone else finds them useful.

Planning and strategy

I read and liked the Business Model Canvas book as a way of organising thoughts about a business, the customers and the costs and offerings it presents. Also, the follow-on book Value Proposition Design gives some valuable information when thinking about exactly what value a business offers its customers.

Stock photography

These sites offer stock photos which stand out a lot better than the generic canned stock photography available on the internet. This list isn’t exhaustive but is a good collection of ones I found.

• Little Visuals
• Unsplash
• Death to the Stock Photo
• New Old Stock
• Superfamous (requires attribution)
• Picjumbo
• The Pattern Library
• Gratisography
• Getrefe
• IM Free (requires attribution)
• Jay Mantri
• Public Domain Archive
• Magdeleine
• Foodiesfeed
• Picography
• Raumrot
• ISO Republic
• https://www.flickr.com/photos/thomashawk/
• http://compfight.com
• http://pixabay.com/
• http://kaboompics.com/
• http://magdeleine.co/browse/
• http://freerangestock.com/
• http://www.freeimages.com/

Press pack planning

Moo.com do a range of stuff which can be used to build a press pack.

Honourable Mention

Whilst doing some research for this article I found a really informative post for any small business looking at advertising in the wedding industry. I'm including it here for anyone looking for some tips.

Update

After the relaunch the business saw steady growth, getting increasing number of bookings each month.

I was delighted to hear that it had managed to become a preferred supplier for a hotel venue in the area. Congratulations guys!