An ideal time to review where your marketing is going

Branding, Discovery / 05.06.20
Mark Vaesen

How one company took the opportunity to review one of their key marketing strategies so they could come out of the pandemic stronger.

In the third week of March 2020, along with thousands of business owners across the country, Alistair Binks was trying to come to terms with the reality of the UK’s economy being shut down for weeks – if not months – as a result of the Coronavirus.

Alistair’s company Albion Languages provides translation and localisation services to clients in the UK and around the world; in short, it helps businesses overcome language barriers and expand into lucrative foreign markets.

Things had been going well; the business had grown steadily and 2020 looked like being a very successful year. The company was starting to win some significant contracts with household name clients.

And then – the world stopped turning.

What would happen now?

A chance to review marketing tactics

Instead of panicking or falling into a pit of despair, Alistair took the chance to review his strategic plans and re-focus on what marketing he needed to put in place to come out of the crisis stronger and achieve his long-term vision.

He recognised that things had changed in his business and Albion’s branding needed to be re-aligned to get them in front of more of their perfect clients and maintain the momentum they’d built up.

Alistair takes up the story;

“Like most companies, we can easily fall into the trap of being too focused on immediate and short-term issues and losing sight of things like our sales and marketing strategy and branding and the “assets/tools” we use – like our website, brochure and social media channels.

A lot of time can quickly pass between when the assets were created – especially the static ones, like our brochure – and the present.”

We didn’t really know where to start.

— Alistair Binks, General Manager, Albion Languages

“Five years have passed by in a flash since we last considered whether our brand and its various elements were fit for purpose, effective and still reflect who we are as a company. Changes in a business are often gradual and only stark when you have a chance to take a step back and consider them in direct comparison.

That amount of time passing also meant that we’d really got used to what we had and, although there might have been good reasons to change certain things, it all seemed too much of a major process to think about how to make changes and on what basis. We didn’t really know where to start.”

“With the shock of coronavirus and its temporary effect on our clients, we decided to take the opportunity to look at the shortcomings of our current marketing and brand strategy and began to think about how it could be overhauled.

But with such a complex matter, we didn’t feel comfortable going into the process alone. This is where the Tomango/Coast2Capital Discovery sessions proved invaluable.”

“At no cost to ourselves, in Tomango we had access to an independent brand “auditor” and we went through one of their brand Discovery sessions.

This is a situation analysis we went through together on our main offerings, how we differentiate ourselves from competitors, what our profitable activities are and where we want to get to in 3 years’ time in terms of products/services, client base, team, and client perceptions of us.

In question-and-answer sessions, we identified our core issues and weaknesses and which areas would need to be developed. The outcome from these sessions was a set of concrete recommendations on our branding, website, social media, other assets.”

Find out how Discovery can change your business

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“What I liked was that there wasn’t any obligation at any time to take the recommendations given, or any feeling that the audit was part of a pre-sales process. We could simply treat it as a standalone audit and draw our own conclusions about whether to put in practice any or all of the advice given.

We’re really excited about the impact this will have on our business.

— Alistair Binks, General Manager, Albion Languages

The session was of a high standard and could easily have just been taken as a one-off audit with insightful conclusions.”

“In our case though, through the audit process a really good empathy, understanding and trust developed between us and we really appreciated the analytical side of the whole process in particular.

As a result, we’re now going ahead with a full rebranding in line with the audit findings and we’re really excited about the project and the impact it will have on our business.”

For a limited time, Discovery sessions are available completely free

Tomango’s Discovery sessions usually cost £900 + VAT, but some sessions are currently available fully-funded for businesses that are eligible and fall within the East and West Sussex area.

What to do next

Places are limited, so if you’re interested in brand Discovery sessions, in the first instance either give Tomango a call on 01273 814019 for an initial 15-minute chat, or email hello@tomango.co.uk.