The Midlands Engine is a coalition of Councils, Combined Authorities and Local Enterprise Partnerships which actively work together to present the Midlands as an attractive region for growth and trade.
The Engine wanted to grow awareness of the Midlands’ international trade opportunities for local businesses who may be considering exporting their products abroad.
VBX knew that understanding the Engine’s audiences would be key to delivering the right messages, so we segmented them into those who knew they could trade internationally, those who’d requested to export goods via a supplier and those who didn’t know they could export.
We then looked at their touch points, such as events, forums, networking opportunities, direct messaging and social media and built a multi-channel, integrated marketing campaign that could be deployed across every point. We wanted to ensure that wherever a business was, they’d receive the right information when international trade was mentioned.
VBX created a landing page to capture missed online search opportunities, along with social media channel set-up and branding and an online events forum. We used videos, marketing collateral, digital advertising, digital marketing and social media to deliver key messages.
The campaign presented concise content around different themes – such as ‘Why export?’ and ‘How the DIT can help’ – to ensure we hit audiences at the right stage of their journey.
The campaign saw sustained spikes in engagement across all key channels including social media, emails and website traffic. Within the first three months of rollout, the digital content we created reached a targeted audience of 41,000 people, and Midlands Engine continues to receive new enquiries to this day.
