New approach plugs BRAVE directly into its target market

BRAVE, Bristol’s Enterprise Agency, has a proud mission:

to promote the creation of small businesses and support the development of Bristol’s small business sector.

And for over 30 years it has fulfilled this mission.

The problem faced by BRAVE today

However, today it operates on a skeleton staff and a shoestring budget, the result of the changes in funding for ‘business support’ and the structure of the ‘enterprise sector’.

For Liz Sands, BRAVE’s spirited manager, the focus remains unchanged:

  • Provide top class client support
  • Run the office efficiently
  • Obtain the funding required to maintain a high level of service.

Yet BRAVE’s management team knew it wasn’t promoting the agency’s good work well enough. Marketing strategy and tactics hadn’t been reviewed or updated for some time. This coincided with the imminent, seismic changes to the enterprise sector expected after the 2010 election. More than ever before it was crucial for BRAVE to be positioned as a major player in business support for Bristol.

brave logo1 300x159 New approach plugs BRAVE directly into its target market

BRAVE has helped thousands of people get into business in Bristol

Finding a low cost but canny solution

Working with BRAVE, I planned and implemented a low cost content marketing and social media strategy. In short, this involved:

  1. Identifying successful businesses that had used BRAVE services in some way
  2. Interviewing them to produce a business profile for each that promoted the new business and BRAVE at the same time
  3. Placing these good news business stories in the local and national media
  4. Promoting the articles heavily across Twitter and the blogosphere
  5. Training BRAVE staff in the new rules of marketing and PR, plus the tactics to deliver measurable marketing results for little or no cost.

It wasn’t difficult to uncover positive stories about BRAVE from the people it had advised. Over eight weeks I interviewed a fascinating bunch of entrepreneurs managing a wide variety of new businesses. Some examples:

Each story had its own narrative and insights. It was remarkable to hear how BRAVE’s early support and advice had been invaluable to these entrepreneurs.

With the content in the bag I placed the articles in the local and national media (editors are always hungry for good news about UK business).

Twitter proved a great way of connecting BRAVE directly with local start-ups, businesspeople, PRs and journalists. Interestingly, the latter two groups tend to be ‘mavens’ and ‘connectors’, willing to help BRAVE reach out to people interested in enterprise in Bristol.

I understood BRAVE’s mission, the type of client it needed to service, its stakeholders’ agendas, and which policymakers it needed to influence. We agreed initial objectives:

  • Build a Bristol-based following comprising its main target markets
  • Tweet daily about business, enterprise, BRAVE services, and Bristol more generally
  • Engage with the Twitter following as it grew.

I built up a powerful series of inspiring case studies about BRAVE clients. The next step was to implement a systematic programme on Twitter to keep BRAVE active every day for eight weeks. There was plenty to tweet about, not just the case studies, but the day to day work of an active agency.

Hundreds of new connections and a bank of valuable client profiles

Over 600 tweets later, BRAVE now has a very targeted local following of 350-plus and a new standing amongst those seeking trustworthy business advice and counsel.

This exercise in content marketing and social media means BRAVE has connected with the people it needed to reach without resorting to advertising or other paid-for marketing. In the process it’s become established as a trusted source of business advice. By commissioning positive case studies of its clients BRAVE has invested in a resource that keeps on giving: good content can be repurposed and published again and again.

The BRAVE management are now confident in using Twitter as a business tool. We are planning the next step along the social marketing journey: LinkedIn and Facebook.

Contact me to discuss how to boost the profile of your organisation.

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