Jetlag Sports Bar (now defunct)

Before becoming a sports bar, my wife and I asked the owner to show a game of university-level American football.

Four years later, the final-quarter weekend revenue of the bar had increased by between ten and fifteen-fold.

Subsequently employed by the bar, I promoted televised niche sporting events. Swedish ice hockey. French handball. etc. etc.

The strategy was simple. Americans, Swedes, French, and other ex-pat groups have a presence on Twitter, as do the teams they follow.

So by sending up to 200 targeted tweets per week, the 30-day stats for a new website became: 11,203 sessions; 8,558 users; 62,777 page views; bounce rate 0.48%; organic search 6,239; pages/sessions 5.60. (Screenshot on request.)

This was entirely organic. Not a penny paid. Sadly, the bar ceased trading because of developers next-door, but not before annual turnover started approaching £600k.

Ahead4Babies

This clinic on Harley Street has been a different proposition. Seeing that 70% of the traffic came to the site via mobile devices, I designed and launched new site optimised for said devices. (As a result, website traffic increased thirty-fold.)

Then, finding out that the research behind the procedure the clinic performs is not readily available, I spent two weeks in the Royal Society of Medicine library. Having read the research there, I converted it into infographics, which you can see here.

This was important to do, because occasionally a journalist or NHS spokesperson latches on to a minority research paper that disputes the procedure. In a small business there is a fine line between marketing and PR.

Next, I streamlined the AdWords campaign. This was bloated and not set to measure its own efficacy. I therefore pruned it and set conversions. So we can now see how effectively it directs people to us.

Finally, I started tweeting several times each week @A4BUK. Rather than restricting tweets to the business of the clinic, which is baby helmets, I tweeted about my own experience of parenting too, in order to connect with other parents.

London Wall Partners

As Marketing Manager for London Wall Partners much of my time was tied up in lead and event management. This was the administrative side of the role.

On the innovative side, it seemed to me that some functions could be done better.

As such, I increased the efficacy of MailFirst email campaigns by implementing a repeat mailing (with different subject line) to non-openers. This increased the open rate by an average of 41.9% and the click-through rate by an average of 15.6%.

I also introduced firm to Adobe Creative Suite so that 170g silk-coated brochure inserts could be printed in-house. Initially I did the work myself, before giving a crash course to one of the partners. In the long run this will save the company time and money since there is no need to involve an external design agency.

Other

This is by no means a full repertoire.

I have developed websites for charity and spiritual direction.

I have also coded websites from the bottom up (using Bootstrap). So I am comfortable with HTML, CSS, and PHP, plus snippets of JavaScript. (That said, I prefer WordPress because it means the client can manage the site by themselves, should they so wish.)

I regularly use Adobe CS too. View my portfolio here. This includes producing Kindle books. (Here’s one I produced earlier.)

Finally, I have experience on the following platforms: Google (Analytics, AdWords, and Tag Manager), MailChimp, Joomla, Zoho, Coda, Prezi, and Quark.

I do not believe that marketing can be done well without first-hand experience of the core-business. So I have pulled pints and facilitated baby clinics – anything to better understand the business.

First-hand experience of the core business also means meeting the customers. And sometimes the customers have the best ideas for marketing.

I do not believe that social media is a silver bullet. But I believe in its potency when mixed with networking, and when a particular social media “fits” a particular market. (It is one thing to be on a social media platform, but another to be on the same platform as your market. And there is no point paying for social media if you can reach your market organically.)

I believe in measuring marketing to ascertain its impact on the bottom line. Increasing followers and likes does not necessarily increase sales.