Inspire Design, a consultancy firm, specialising in the planning, design and delivery of residential, commercial and leisure developments, first came to the Growth Hub in 2016 seeking support to improve focus and clarity on objectives, customers and services offered. With the support of Darren Buxton, a Business Growth Specialist, a new strategy was developed that enabled the business to address the gaps in the previous strategy and really hone in on the key elements driving the business. Since then the business has gone from strength to strength and significantly boosted both turnover and staff numbers.
The business had no hesitation in turning to the Growth Hub again for support with sales and marketing following the recruitment of a marketing role. Inspire were looking to develop their sales and marketing strategy and build on the previous strategic work by developing skills in the business to attract new clients
The business had two main challenges when planning future growth for their business. The digital marketing efforts of the business were meeting difficulties and the business lacked the necessary skills to develop their activity to the next level “We struggled to think of ways to develop our digital marketing strategy to stand out and make an impact to potential clients”. The second challenge was their sales strategy which they felt needed developing to not only attract new clients, but retain existing clients.
Darren focused his attention on supporting the marketing team, evaluating previous digital marketing campaigns and assessing how the business could gain more sales leads. From this the business created new eye-catching email marketing templates which were more effective at getting the businesses message across. Darren then helped develop a new communication matrix within the business, enabling Inspire to create a process which aimed at retaining existing clients and developing the customer journey by examining touch points.
The support was delivered by the Growth Hub’s Enhancement Project which offers a range of support aimed at high growth companies and is financed by the England European Regional Development Fund as part of the European Structural and Investment Funds Growth Programme 2014-2020.
Inspire have attended a number of the Enhancement Project’s popular Masterclasses which are aimed at improving skills in growing businesses “These were useful as it really got us thinking about what our customer’s pain points are and how we should be adapting our marketing activities in relation to them.” The Masterclasses are available to all eligible businesses across the Sheffield City Region “It was useful to network with other attendees to see what they do differently in their business and how the Growth Hub has supported them”.
Since receiving their support, the company’s digital marketing results have dramatically improved and has motivated the whole team “We have experienced better email open rates and a higher number of impressions on social media, resulting in higher traffic towards our website. This has led to an increase of new enquiries”. Inspire have recently recruited an additional employee to support the increase of business growth and ensure their projects are delivered efficiently and delivered in line with the client’s expectations. “The support we have received from Darren has been invaluable. By making himself familiar with the business, Darren is fully aware of what we have been aiming to achieve, which has allowed us to improve our approach to marketing accordingly. Each session brings new ideas and we look forward to what the future brings.”
The Sheffield City Region Growth Hub Enhancement Project is receiving up to £2.7m of funding from the England European Regional Development Fund as part of the European Structural and Investment Funds Growth Programme 2014-2020. The Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government’ (and in London the intermediate body Greater London Authority) is the Managing Authority for the European Regional Development Fund. Established by the European Union, the European Regional Development Fund helps local areas stimulate their economic development by investing in projects which will support innovation, business, create jobs and local community regeneration’s. For more information visit www.gov.uk/european-growth-funding