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About David Scanlon
Development Adviser at Enterprise Ireland, working on the Start In Ireland project.
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What have AMCS, Storyful and Cloudium Systems got in common? They are all successful Irish companies who were started by entrepreneurs who were previously employed in senior management positions and successfully transitioned to self-employment.
Enterprise Ireland is interested in assisting commercially experienced individuals in making the transition from employment to entrepreneurship. We are presently considering launching a new programme targeted at those who are interested in starting a business but who are not just ready to give up the “day job” just yet.
In the present economic climate the notion of setting up your own business may be a daunting one but it’s the ideal time if you have the right idea. Learning how to go about doing this is the first step for any potential entrepreneur. If this type of programme is something that you may have any level of interest in we would be very grateful if you would click and submit the following survey (which should take no longer than 5 mins of your time).
Please visit the survey on https://www.surveymonkey.com/s/ProposedETP or share this if you think it could be of interest to friends/contacts.
Everyone will still be talking about football on June 18th but we want to use the EURO 2012 championships as an opportunity to highlight links between Polish and Irish startup communities, and to discuss opportunities for the startups in their respective export markets. Enterprise Ireland, the Guinness Enterprise Centre and Huge Thing (the leading accelerator for start-ups in Poland) have teamed up to host a video conference event to give Irish and Polish start-ups a chance to learn from each other and participate in a pitching competition.
Date: Monday 18th June
Time: Lunch at 12.30 followed by the video conference at 1 pm;
Venues: Guinness Enterprise Centre in Dublin and Centrum Konferencyjne POLSKA 13 in Poznań
If you are interested in participating, please register via email to naghmeh.reilly@enterprise-ireland.com, and please feel free to pass this invitation on to others who may be interested. If you’re not able to make it we’ll be providing extensive coverage on Twitter, hashtag is #startupbridge.
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Agenda
12.30 – Lunch, GEC Conference Room 3
13.00 – Welcome and introductions, Eamonn Sayers, Manager at the Guinness Enterprise Centre
13.10 – “Huge Thing in Poznan – preparing startups for global success”, Arek Hajduk, Co-founder and CEO at Huge Thing
13.25 -“Ireland’s Startup Ecosystem, EI’s role”, Naghmeh Reilly, Senior Marketing Executive, Overseas Entrepreneurship at Enterprise Ireland
13.40 - Dawid Piaskowski, CEO and founder of Booklikes.com, “Doing a global startup from Poland”
13.55 – “Assistance for Startups in Ireland”, Richard Morton, Venture Consultant at DBIC
14.05 – “Polish startup’s experience in Ireland”, Mike Sikorsky, CEO and founder of Huggity
14.20 – Q&A
14.30 – Pitch Contest
- 6 teams (3 Dublin, 3 Poznań)
- Dublin: TextMeADrink; Cluey; 45Sound
- Poznań: Lorneta; Moodup; Pocademy; Sellbox
15.20 – “Seed Investing in Poland”, Bartek Gola, Managing Partner at SpeedUp Venture Capital Group
15.40 -“Scaling for Global Success”, Benetel
16.00 Wrap-up
This is a guest post from James Lawn, CEO of Polecat, a client of Enterprise Ireland. Polecat Founders James Lawn and Bronwyn Kunhardt established the business in 2008 and are both former executive board members of Microsoft UK.
I can’t believe it’s two years’ since David Scanlon’s post on Polecat and MeaningMine offering intelligent market analysis – time flies when you’re having fun!
For those that haven’t met us yet, Polecat is a software and services company that transforms digital content into strategic insights for executive level decision-making. Polecat’s software platform, called MeaningMine™, is the world’s first Virtual Analyst software solution that joins advanced search, text analytics and learning-based algorithms with innovative visualisations to deliver real time insights into any topic. Though I say it myself, it’s very clever, and I’m glad to say the AIB Seed Capital Fund (co-managed by Enterprise Equity), Enterprise Ireland and our existing private investors agree: Polecat has just completed a funding round of €850,000 to accelerate expansion of our operations. But it is not just our friends in Enterprise Equity and Enterprise Ireland I want to call out here, the support and enthusiasm we have experienced from the Irish academic world cannot go un-mentioned, including: our long-standing advisor Professor Pádraig Cunningham at the UCD School of Computer Science and Informatics, and Dr. Conor Hayes at DERI’s Information Mining and Retrieval Unit in Galway. Two great exemplars of how collaboration between the Irish business and academic worlds can support the development of a market-leading product.
This latest investment is a true vote of confidence in Polecat’s business strategy and technology development over the past 2 years. Having been declared “Best Emerging Technology Company” by Larry Ellison (CEO, Oracle Corp) in 2009, Polecat is now a fast growing company, currently with 22 full time employees, based in Ireland, the UK, the USA and the Netherlands. Polecat counts as customers the world’s largest companies, government organizations and consulting firms, including Shell, BP, HSBC, Silicon Valley Bank, Sony, Microsoft, Ernst & Young, McKinsey and EU, UK & Irish Government. Polecat already has significant revenues and is profitable. As well as accelerating sales of its virtual analyst software platform in the UK and Europe, this significant investment will allow Polecat to expand its global presence. The investment is expected to lead to the creation of 30 jobs in Ireland over the next three years and, if you are an experienced Java Developer, we’re hiring now!
 Following on from the success of the Dublin Web Summit in 2011, the 19th of March will see two of the best know web events for start ups join forces for the first time. GeeknRolla and the Dublin Web Summit, are merging to create the London Web Summit.
TechCrunch Europe Editor Mike Butcher will co-curate the Summit with Paddy Cosgrave of the Dublin Web Summit. With a focus at the summit on Trends in Local, Social and Mobile, Growth and Investment Strategies for Start Ups and Insights on Cloud and Data, speakers at the Summit include an array of exciting speakers including Matthew Prince Founder, CloudFlare, Jason Goldberg, Founder of Fab.com, Mark Read, CEO of WPP Digital, Jessica Powell, CMO of Badoo and many more.
“We’re really delighted to be teaming up with the Dublin Web Summit lads. They’ve managed to do it again and put together a fantastic lineup of incredible speakers. Hopefully we’ll have a bit of that Irish magic in London for the London Web Summit”
-TechCrunch Europe Editor Mike Butcher
There is a lot of buzz around the event with over 350 people registering to attend within the first 3 days of registration. Paddy Cosgrave encourages Irish startups to get get over to the event:
“We’re offering Irish startups an opportunity to exhibit at the London Web Summit and we’ve seen quite a number of investors sign up, people from Accel, Atomico, Balderton, Index, Graylock and many more, so its a great opportunity to meet some of the top investors in London. For any startups under two years old we’re also running a startup competition to find the top five startups who’ll present in front of an audience of 800 at the end of the day.”
For more information about the event and the opportunity to showcase your company as one of Europe’s hottest start ups, see the startup competition entry.
Enterprise Ireland will be supporting the event and the London Web Summit have agreed a rate of £995 + VAT to any Irish companies who wish to exhibit at the event.
To avail of this special exhibition rate, please contact the London Web Summit directly on bronagh@websummit.net
Trade fair support from Enterprise Ireland may be available to Enterprise Ireland client companies only (subject to eligibility) up to the value of 50%. For more information, Enterprise Ireland clients need to discuss their eligibility with their Development Advisor directly.
For general information, please contact Claire Bodys on Claire.bodys@enterprise-ireland.com
This is the fourth in a series of posts focused on how Irish SMEs are delivering real results using Internet marketing. This case study features an interview with Maricka Burke Keogh, Senior Online Marketing Executive, and Eimear O’Brien, Online Marketing Executive at Enerit, a client of Enterprise Ireland. Enerit received support from the Enterprise Ireland Internet Marketing Unit to assist with the development of their Internet marketing strategy.
Energetic social media strategy boosts Enerit’s profile
Using social media, energy management software company Enerit is building a name for itself as a thought leader in its sector, as well as boosting its sales prospects through effective lead generation.
Galway-based Enerit is using social media to great effect as it strives to grow its reputation in the energy sector. And with plans in the works to broaden its social media strategy even further, Enerit is well on its way to becoming a recognisable global brand.
LinkedIn a hit for generating leads
The star performer in Enerit’s social media strategy is LinkedIn. Maricka Burke Keogh, Senior Online Marketing Executive for Enerit, says the business networking tool has been instrumental in boosting traffic to the company’s website and helping to identify relevant sales leads.
As well as a company page on LinkedIn, Enerit’s employees, including top management, all have separate personal LinkedIn profiles. The company’s strategy is clear when it comes to LinkedIn: no “hard sell”, explains Maricka. “On LinkedIn, our aim us to showcase our technical expertise and thought leadership.”
Enerit does this through active participation in LinkedIn Group Discussions. “We’re lucky that our CEO, Paul Monaghan, and COO, Mike Brogan, are passionate about social media. They’ve joined a number of relevant groups, like the generic ISO 50001 Group, and regularly comment on topics or start discussions themselves. I continually monitor LinkedIn and these groups and if I see a relevant discussion I point them in that direction. It’s much more effective for our management and engineers to be commenting on topics rather than our marketing staff,” explains Maricka.
Paul and Mike have also built up good networks on LinkedIn and they regularly communicate with their contacts, sending them Inbox Messages about any relevant Enerit news or developments. In fact, one such message sent out by Paul, highlighting Enerit’s recent work with Pfizer, increased referral leads in December by 100 percent, according to Maricka.
“LinkedIn has become one of our top sources for referral leads, and because we can target such relevant contacts the leads are proving to be extremely high quality,” she says.
Though the majority of traffic to the Enerit website comes from organic search results for either “Enerit” or “ISO 50001″ and direct traffic, LinkedIn is fast becoming a key factor. In December, 20 percent of traffic to the website came through referrals, with over a quarter of that traffic generated through LinkedIn. “And this is very high-quality traffic, with LinkedIn visitors spending on average 2.52 minutes on our site,” says Maricka.
Building credibility through social media
As it continues to build strong networks on social media platforms like LinkedIn, Enerit has plans to exploit its growing contacts. With any testimonials it has received from energy consultants Enerit adds a link to the consultants’ LinkedIn profile pages.
“We believe these testimonials with links to the consultants’ LinkedIn pages make for very credible recommendations of our software. We then feature these testimonials on our own company LinkedIn page, adding to our growing reputation,” explains Eimear O’Brien, Online Marketing Executive for Enerit.
Growing contacts list with Twitter
As well as LinkedIn, Twitter also plays a role in Enerit’s social media strategy. The company has been increasing its Twitter followers steadily and has started to attract increasingly relevant followers. “When we first started on Twitter it was mainly people looking for jobs that were following us, now it’s companies, energy managers and potential partners that we can target,” says Maricka.
All Enerit press releases are tweeted on Twitter and the marketing team also tweets any mentions of Enerit in media articles globally. The team also include links to its Twitter profile in all press releases to encourage relevant people to ‘follow’ Enerit on Twitter.
Maricka outlines how Twitter has become a key research tool for Enerit as it accumulates contacts and targets. “We regularly analyse our followers: we see who they follow and who’s following them and assess if these are relevant to us. That way we can compile a ‘who’s who’ for our sector, quite easily.”
“We’ve also found this a useful way to see which trade magazines would be worth getting in touch with. Once we identify the magazines and editors interested in our sector we get their contact details and send in our press releases, widening our global reach,” she explains.
Sharing knowledge to build the brand
For Enerit, it’s main aim with its social media presence is to raise its brand awareness by demonstrating its expertise. As it plans a new website with increased social media functionality, Enerit is also planning on building on its current online strategy.
For example, Maricka says she aims to develop a separate technical Twitter profile for Enerit, where people can ask technical queries about the company’s software. “As we continue to grow the business, we think Twitter could become an ideal medium for answering customers’ queries,” she explains. Maricka takes her inspiration from PC manufacturer Dell, which she says has used this strategy to good effect.
Also on the cards is starting up a profile on Quora, a “questions and answers” network. “Quora is something we’re exploring. It allows you to answer questions and start conversations on very relevant topics – so you can help people by offering tips and advice, and also give our thoughts on new developments, implementations and standards. Our engineers would be actively involved in this – showcasing their expertise.”
Video is another area that Enerit is keen to explore. The company’s new website is likely to feature a series of videos explaining its flagship software, as well as some training videos. Maricka also plans on expanding on the company’s thought-leading strategy by offering research whitepapers for download from the Enerit blog as well as sharing presentations via Slideshare.
There’s little doubt that social media plays a prominent role in Enerit’s overall marketing strategy, and with active support from top management, who are keen to share their knowledge on the various social media platforms, Maricka says she has been able to make a great start since she came on board in August 2011.
This article was written by ENNclick for the Enterprise Ireland Internet Marketing Unit.
Enerit
It’s that time of year again: LIT are currently seeking companies who can provide work placement opportunities for students studying for the Bachelor of Science (Honours) in Multimedia Programming & Design. As I mentioned last year, work placement is a fantastic opportunity to introduce these undergraduates to real-world problems, helping them put their classroom skills to practical use: marry this to the growing need for qualified IT graduates within the Irish software community, and we should have a match made in heaven.
So what are you waiting for?
From Denise McEvoy, LIT Work Placement Coordinator:
Course Title: BSc (hons) in Multimedia Programming and Design – HETAC: Level 8
Work Placement 2012:
As part of this course students in their third year of study must find a work placement for 6 months (March – August) in the area of multimedia design and or programming from first week March 2011 to last week of August 2011 inclusive.
Skillset:
Student would have a broad knowledge base of multimedia (HTML, Dreamweaver, Flash, Premier Pro, Photoshop, Illustrator, Adobe Suite etc.), interaction design, digital video and programming (JAVA, ActionScript, PHP etc).
Would you be interested in the possibility of taking a student/s in 2012 for work placement? You can find out more about the course at the following link: http://www.lit.ie/SciEngAndIT/InfTec/Courses/81/default.aspx
If you would like more information please email me at: denise<dot>mcevoy<at>lit<dot>ie
An eMarketing event focusing on how companies can utilise the Internet to more successfully trade their products and services in international markets is taking place in the Radisson Hotel, Ennis Road, Limerick, on Thursday 8th of March. Hosted by Enterprise Ireland’s Internet Marketing Unit, attendees will learn about the online strategies and processes needed to identify, reach and retain new customers.
The event is specifically targeted at those who work in international marketing and sales, or those responsible for their company’s online marketing strategy. Leading experts in their fields will cover topics such as:
- Developing an Online Marketing Strategy;
- Online Localisation for International Markets;
- Search Engine Optimisation and Pay Per Click Marketing;
- Managing your Digital Investment;
- Branding & Getting the Web Site Content Right.
Speakers attending the event include Fiachra Ó Marcaigh, Director, AMAS, a consultancy specialising in online channels; Niall McKeown, MD, iON, a digital consultancy and online marketing business; John Coburn, MD, PraxisNow, a specialist SEO and search marketing service provider; Ed Field, MD, Digino, one of Ireland’s longest established, largest and most respected digital marketing services companies; and Anton Mannering, Partner at Primary Position, an Internet marketing and SEO consultancy.
The cost of this half-day event is €65 per person, and further details can be obtained from the event website. Please note that this event is strictly for existing clients of Enterprise Ireland.
In order to book and confirm your participation, register and make payment online here.
This is the third in a series of posts focused on how Irish SMEs are delivering real results using Internet marketing. This case study features an interview with Patrick Buckley, Sales & Marketing Director at EPS Group, a client of Enterprise Ireland. EPS Group received support from the Enterprise Ireland Internet Marketing Unit to assist with the development of their Internet marketing strategy.
EPS gets website traffic flowing with SEO
A solid SEO strategy has seen EPS Group drive new business and raise brand awareness as it looks to expand into overseas markets.
Sustainable water solutions provider EPS Group has transformed its website into a key marketing tool with an SEO strategy that puts the focus firmly on content and clever use of keywords.
Operation ‘website transformation’
Following a marketing review in 2010, EPS Group realised that its website was not being used to its full potential. “We weren’t really focused on our site as much as we should have been,” explains Patrick Buckley, sales and marketing director with EPS Group. “As a result, we noticed that our site was quite poor; there was too much content and we were saying all the wrong things.”
With less than 150 website hits per month, it became apparent that EPS Group was pretty much “invisible” online. “Basically, if someone wanted to find us online, they couldn’t; we didn’t exist as far as online was concerned.”
EPS made a start by employing a full-time person to deal exclusively with its online presence, and dedicating more time to improving the performance of the site. It also worked with a web development firm, Webtrade, as well as a marketing company, AMAS, to develop a content and marketing strategy.
Identifying keywords boosts visibility
In the sustainable water solutions market, the majority of Google searches feature the word ‘water’ e.g. ‘ water harvesting solutions’, ‘waste water treatment’, ‘rain water pumps’, ‘water purification systems’, ‘waste water pumps’. Armed with this information, Patrick decided to include the word water in the group’s URL – www.epswater.ie, as well as snapping up epswater.co.uk, epswater.fr and epswater.com.
Using keyword research tools and analytics, EPS also identified a selection of the most relevant and popular industry search terms, and decided to scatter these words throughout its website content. “We consistently track these keywords each month to see what page we show up on in Google search results. Previously, with some of the keywords we were appearing at page 6 or 7, but now we are on the first page every time, which is a significant improvement.”
Regular tweaking keeps content relevant
Continuously adding content and making amendments to existing content helps keep the EPS site fresh and relevant, says Patrick. “We regularly add news items to the site and constantly tweak metadata words in the background. By keeping a close eye on Google Analytics we can see what pages people are coming to and what they are looking for. If there’s a page that’s not as active as we want it to be, we will tweak it to make it more relevant. If we want to direct people to a certain page we’ll add content to the homepage that highlights particular sub-pages and try to funnel traffic through that way too,” he explains.
How it presents itself online has become a critical factor for EPS. With such a diverse range of products and services, confusion was a common element with customers who weren’t aware of EPS’s full range. “Our website had to address that issue and raise awareness of all our products and services. With our previous site, there was too much content, and this was confusing visitors, who struggled to find what they were looking for,” Patrick explains. “With the new site we’ve improved the navigation and the content, making it easier for people to get to the relevant pages. Also, by focusing on key search terms, we are seeing more traffic coming through to sub-pages of the site, and getting the information they’re looking for, quicker.”
This strategy is reflected in EPS’s analytics, which show that as site page views have decreased, length of time spent on the EPS site has increased. “Typically, people spend between 3.5 minutes and 4 minutes on our site, and with the page views down it leads us to believe that visitors are finding what they are looking for a lot quicker.”
Focused approach pays off
In just over a year traffic to the EPS website has rocketed, 150 hits per month to a consistent 3,500-4,000 monthly hits. And all this new traffic is translating to new business for the firm, according to Patrick. “With this increase in visitors, we’ve seen a huge boost in the number of enquiries through our site. The majority of these are sound enquiries which have led to new business.”
But EPS isn’t resting there. The company plans to use some of what it’s learned on the Irish site to enhance its newly launched UK site, with the aim of hitting 1,000 visitors per month by June 2012. Also on the cards is a global site, which Patrick says will be used to drive more traffic back to the Irish website.
Patrick credits advice given by Enterprise Ireland as the impetus EPS needed to make changes to its website. “The Enterprise Ireland support and guidance was of great benefit to us at the beginning of this project. That investment in time and resources is now paying off for EPS in both our domestic and export sales.”
“We’ve learned so much about the importance of our website over the past couple of years. We now see our site as a very important part of our overall strategy in growing our business,” Patrick concludes.
This article was written by ENNclick for the Enterprise Ireland Internet Marketing Unit.
This is the second in a series of posts focused on how Irish SMEs are delivering real results using Internet marketing. This case study features an interview with Michael O’Brien, Head of Marketing at Celtrino, a client of Enterprise Ireland.
Quality content on its website is helping supply chain management specialist Celtrino develop its brand and differentiate itself from competitors.
A veteran in the supply chain management world in Ireland, Celtrino’s recent re-vamp of its website is allowing the company to showcase its expertise through a successful blog, as well as boosting brand recognition as it aims to expand into new markets.
Content strategy begins with research
After joining Celtrino in 2009, marketing director Michael O’Brien’s first port of call was to do a full marketing audit. With online becoming more and more important, Michael set about focusing on the Celtrino website and online presence.
“For me, the relevance of the website and being found online was of paramount importance.” Michael said his plan started with in-depth research. “I can’t underestimate how vital it is to understand the words being used online by your competitors, analysts and customers. Once you understand the ecosystem within which you are operating you can then set down a content strategy both for your own website and how you are going to engage with other online tools, like social media.”
Web content critical to search results
Celtrino’s new website went live on 27 May 2010 and within six months Celtrino dominated search engine results for all of its relevant key terms. “If I’m on the phone talking to somebody, chances are they are online typing our name into Google. Being found easily online is important for our continued success in the Irish market, but is also vital as we look to break into the UK market,” said Michael.
Developing relevant, quality content is key to Celtrino’s search engine success, according to Michael: “We need to keep producing quality content or we will lose people and cease to be relevant, and Google will pick up on that too.”
Continually refreshing the site’s content is also an important factor in Celtrino’s content strategy. “Our market is constantly changing and so our web content needs to be regularly updated to reflect that. Of course, regular content updates improve search engine visibility too.”
Content directs customers to next steps
While the homepage is the way most people will enter a website, Michael explains that because the Celtrino site is so optimised for search engines, there is a high chance people are coming to internal pages on the site through targeted search results.
Bearing that in mind, Celtrino developed dedicated content pages for each of its solutions, as well as identifying a list of ‘business needs’ that lead the visitor to relevant product pages. Clear action points were also added to each page, which makes sure that any visitor can see at a glance how they can contact Celtrino or get more information on certain products.
“It was imperative to us that someone coming to the site through a Google search for, say, ‘accounts payable solutions’ would have a clear call to action on the page they land on. This call to action could be a number of things, such as ‘email us’, ‘call us’, or ‘download a whitepaper’. Essentially, the key for us is understanding what the visitor is trying to achieve and giving them every opportunity to do so.”
Blog content gives Celtrino a voice
Keen to provide regular, fresh content on its site, Celtrino launched a blog in September 2011 and typically push out a new blog post three times a week. Michael says the blog has been a great success to date and has broadened the company’s reputation online. “The blog gives us a voice and the opportunity to engage with our audiences that we wouldn’t always have with the website. It also helps us to stand out in the market. For any companies considering a blog I would advise them to look around their sector and see what they can take ownership of in terms of content: ask themselves, ‘what can I write about that makes us stand out?’”
And when you do write a blog that gets noticed, that’s when you can really make an impact, according to Michael. “If your blog post is picked up by another blogger or commentator and shared, then all of a sudden you move up to a different level. Having your content reused around the web ensures that you are seen as a relevant and trusted source of content; the net result is that you will be favoured by Google and other search engines as they focus on delivering relevant and trusted content to their customers.”
Celtrino’s focus on developing quality content for its website has helped it create a strong online presence, which Michael said it is keen to take advantage of. “In February we plan on doing a major refresh of our website content to reflect changes within the sector and changes to our customers’ requirements. And within the next year or so, Celtrino aims to launch an e-commerce function on its site.”
This article was written by ENNclick for the Enterprise Ireland Internet Marketing Unit.
As mentioned in my previous post, this is the first in a series of case studies focused on how Irish SMEs are delivering real results using Internet marketing. This interview features Siobhan O’Dwyer, VP Marketing at Nualight, a client of Enterprise Ireland.
Nualight puts email marketing in the spotlight
LED retail lighting specialist Nualight is using email newsletters to build its brand and promote itself as a thought leader in the fast-growing LED lighting market.
Nualight is one of the original pioneers of LED food lighting and counts Tesco, Morrisons, and Sainsbury’s among its key customers. Co-located in Cork and Amsterdam, the rapidly growing company has been making a name for itself in the buoyant retail lighting market helped by its content-filled company newsletters.
Monthly newsletter keeps customers up to date
A monthly e-newsletter – called Bright Thinking – is used to keep Nualight’s 4,000-plus customers across Europe and the US updated on company news. “We launch products on such a regular basis that it would be impossible to keep our customers up to date without the newsletter; it really is the most effective way to tell them our news,” said Siobhan O’Dwyer, vice president of marketing with Nualight.
The monthly e-newsletter is teased via a HTML email sent to a subscriber list, with snippets of content that link back to the Nualight website. “We’re keen to direct people back to our website, where we have so much content and information we’d like them to see. Newsletters are a great way to do that.”
Brand building with quarterly e-zine
In what has become a highly competitive market, with some of the biggest companies in the world vying for market share, Nualight’s newsletters have become a vital marketing tool.
“One of our main goals is to position ourselves as experts in our area. With our newsletters we can reinforce that position regularly using content that is interesting to people and, of course, telling people about our ongoing product innovation,” explained Siobhan.
The company’s 32-page online magazine – Bright – is published each quarter. It delivers company news as well as industry-related features and expert interviews. “Our expert interviews in particular are very well received, and they’ve really helped us to align ourselves as thought leaders.”
Creating company spirit globally with staff newsletter
Having just completed the acquisition of a company in the Netherlands, as well as having a manufacturing site in Poland and a global sales team, Nualight was keen to knit its team of over 200 employees together. A monthly email newsletter is sent out to all staff to keep everyone updated on changes within the company, local news from each site, as well as product launches and industry trends.
“The staff newsletter helps us integrate our global team together, and makes sure everyone knows what’s going on in the company and in the industry,” said Siobhan.
Weighing up what’s working
On average, Nualight’s newsletter open rates are at an impressive 25 to 40 percent, with a 47 percent click-through rate. Constant testing and analytics help Siobhan identify which articles are proving most popular.
“We’re learning as we go along. We know that the HTML emails are crucial to pulling people through to our site so we make sure to create really good content hooks and put some real thought into our subject lines. We’ve identified that readers are interested in innovation, so we make sure to put our product news front and centre. Visual works for us too; our industry is all about atmosphere and ambience so we have upped the image content in the HTML mail.”
Divide and conquer
With customers all across Europe, Nualight decided to develop its newsletters in English, French and German, with the subscriber database split into the three languages. This strategy has had a positive impact on open rates, according to Siobhan.
Nualight is also planning further segmentation of its subscriber database. A recently introduced newsletter signup box on its website asks people to select their interest in one of the company’s two distinct product lines: “case lighting” or “accent lighting”. Nualight plans to develop a newsletter for each of these lines.
“I would say without hesitation that email marketing is one of the most effective things we do. Customers in our sector are information-hungry and our newsletters have really helped us to tap into that requirement,” concluded Siobhan.
This article was written by ENNclick for the Enterprise Ireland Internet Marketing Unit.
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