Jun 12, 2011 | Uncategorized
Jennifer Davidson, Head of Coconut Events investigates the rise in demand for corporate hospitality as the market recovers.
With the economy stepping out of recession, competition to gain new clients is fierce. The economic downturn has not only seen business go bust but also a change on where budgets are being spent. Businesses are savvier, smarter and know what they want.
Rather than being seen as a ‘jolly’ Corporate Hospitality has gained a new, more prominent position in the marketing mix. Companies are seen to be using Corporate Hospitality as a business retainer, and a chance to build relationships with customers and suppliers for long term gain.
When choosing events to attend remember brand reflection. Top 3 Corporate Hospitality Events of the season not to be missed:
1. Sandpolo
2. British Gran Prix
3. Boodles
Overall, the UK corporate hospitality market is projected to increase by 11% in real terms between 2010 and 2015, reflecting greater understanding of corporate hospitality as an effective communications strategy.
“It is becoming increasingly important. What we are in danger of losing in the modern world of mobile phones and Blackberries is people doing business with people. Taking time out of everyone’s increasingly hectic schedules to spend time with customers, suppliers and bankers is becoming more necessary.”
May 29, 2009 | Uncategorized
Coconut Creatives has teamed together with the Fleet Street freelancer, Linda Whitney, to offer press and media training to its clients. Linda, whose franchise columns have appeared in the Daily Mail for over a decade is now offering this unique training opportunity in a response to help combat media nerves, commonly suffered by business owners and managers. Linda will be offering ‘one 2 one’ training to help individuals understand what journalists are looking for.
“We are really excited to be offering these services to our clients and we can not think of a better person to deliver them, other than Linda,” explains Sarah Cook, founder of Coconut Creatives.
Packaged in a compact one-hour telephone conference with Linda Whitney:
· A ten minute briefing session explaining how to prepare, what journalists want to know and how to relax before starting.
· Then after a break for preparation, Linda will call again and conduct a ten minute mock interview, focussing on the kind of information journalists want from you.
· Ten minutes of feedback, highlighting what comes across well and explaining how you can improve any area that needs polishing up.
· Another ten minute interview allowing you to put into practice what has been learnt, followed by a final ten minute feedback session.
All interviewees receive a summary of the points made in the session by email within an hour of the session ending, which provides useful notes to refer back to in the future. The system has been on trial for a while and the response has been fantastic. The insight it has provided business owners and franchisors into the mysterious world of journalism is valuable.
“Anyone who undertakes this training will gain media communication skills that they can use for the rest of their professional career,” adds Sarah. “For just an hour on invested time, it provides a great result!”
Linda explains further “All business owners, franchisors and key staff will deal with the press at sometime. Getting it right can boost your business. Getting it wrong can have incalculable consequences.”
To find out more about media training with Linda Whitney, visit http://ishouldcoco.wpengine.com/services/press__media_training/ for full details.
Jul 22, 2008 | Uncategorized
You don’t have to allocate an enormous budget to get good results and recruit franchisees. But you do have to be clever and plan ahead, says marketing and PR specialist Sarah Dyer from Coconut Creatives.
This is the most ideal time of year to start planning for the year ahead to take advantage of the peaks of the franchise industry. Below, I will briefly look at the main aspects of creating a campaign that maximises budget, measures return on investment and can create the most benefit. In the next few issues of the Select Your Franchise newsletter, I will go into more detail on each aspect.
Planning, planning and more planning
We can’t state enough how important it is to plan your campaigns in advance. Many magazines will offer an early booking or series discount with good free editorial space to those franchisors that can produce well written case studies or interesting, fresh stories. It is often the same for online advertising with deals of booking so many months and getting some free.
It is a well known fact that advertising is best done over a long period of time whether this is on or off line. It builds your brand in the public domain and exposes your key messages to your target audience who will find it increasingly harder to ignore you when they have seen you for the 10th time!
In the franchise industry we have magazines such as Making Money, What Franchise or Business Franchise which are most effective if used more than once. Yet be realistic about this: whether you have £2k or £10k to spend over the year on magazine advertising, then spread it out across several issues to gain regular exposure and always discuss editorial opportunities.
We feel that it is better to have an increased number of slightly smaller adverts with negotiated free editorial space booked in advance, than fewer larger adverts booked at late notice.
Measure your return on investment
A simple spreadsheet is better than nothing when measuring the return on your investment. You can calculate this in several ways. To calculate the worth of free editorial space achieved over any period, it is best to look at the space that you have achieved and work out how much that same space would have cost you if it were paid for advertising space.
Ongoing market research
Again, this doesn’t have to be made into a complicated procedure. We recommend speaking to 5 existing franchisees, 5 that went to interview stage and 5 that were just spoken to on the phone and received information. Ask them all where they looked for information about franchising, how they found your franchise and most importantly ALL the places that they found your franchise that influenced them. They may have finally enquired through your own website and therefore be labelled a ‘website enquiry’ but what you should be interested in is how they found your website. Did they read an article in a magazine? Did they visit an exhibition and collect some literature? Did they read about you online?
If you can continually refine the combination of marketing and communication channels that are used for your franchise recruitment campaign then you will become more and more successful.
Don’t forget…
· Plan your annual franchise recruitment cycle in advance
· Book any advertising in advance to make the most of early space and series discounts
· Offer good quality case studies which are current and interesting
· Track the return on your investment using a simple spreadsheet or system that you are comfortable with (something is better than nothing)
· Always, always ask prospects how they found out about you
Overall, plan ahead to make sure your business doesn’t get left behind…
