Strategy

Getting your strategy right at the outset can save lots of time and effort in the long run. Setting out your objectives, your knowledge about your customers, the ideas you want to develop and how you want to promote them brings clarity and focus.

With extensive experience in writing marketing and audience development strategies I bring a fresh perspective into your organisation about how we can make your offer creative, exciting and appealing to your market.

Marketing strategies cannot be developed in a vacuum – often they need to align with your wider business or project plans. They also need to make sense to staff. I make sure the team are involved in developing the ideas – through running workshops or just talking with them. It is an essential part of making sure they feel committed and part of the marketing approach. However my involvement and experience takes the pressure off existing staff that don’t have the marketing skills or time to formulate these ideas into a plan of action.

Writing the strategy isn’t the end of the job, it’s the start. But with my help I can make sure your strategies and plans are inspiring, market-focused, innovative, and easy to understand so that people know where they are going.

Recent Work

Bradford Council  – Review of 20 year Cultural Strategy (Nov 2012-June 2013)

10 years into the existing Cultural Strategy for the Bradford District I have been commissioned to do a review and re-visioning for the next 10 years. The review encompasses direction from the Cultural and Tourism Partnership Board in Bradford, stakeholder 121 consultation, stakeholder workshops and public engagement groups. Alongside this further desk research is being undertaken to ensure the re-visioned strategy is fit for purpose, inspiring and sets out Bradford’s ambition for the next 10 years.

Federation of Irish Societies – Marketing and Communications Strategy (Jan 2012)

The Federation of Irish Societies has established marketing channels but with a wide diversity of service delivery from organisational development to research and lobbying it is important to have a clear, planned and targeted annual strategy. By delivering a marketing strategy the organisation now has a clear plan for delivery that helps the organisation achieve its objectives and mission.

St Alex Ltd – Marketing Audit (Dec 11)

St Alex Limited was established to support individuals living in the community with care and support services primarily dealing with residents living with a learning disability. As they have developed their services, they have extended their housing, care and support services to other client groups and also support residents who experience mental health and forensic needs.

St Alex commissioned me to deliver a marketing audit of their external communications which delivered an objective viewpoint on existing communications material as well as suggested channels to be considered as part of a future marketing approach.

International Print Biennale – Festival Marketing Strategy (Aug 2011)

With the festival launching in September 2011 I was commissioned by Northern Print to deliver a marketing campaign strategy. This included identifying target audiences, examining audience data and developing a marketing campaign to increase visitors across the whole programme from the 100,000 achieved in 2009. Visitor figures across all 15 venues will be available in February 2012 but initial results show visitor numbers were significantly up in 2011.