Weatherite - Air Conditioning, HVAC, Data Centre Cooling Units

Had a fascinating afternoon with Robert Boswell, Group Marketing Director at Weatherite.

Weatherite deserves more attention than it gets. It's a medium sized company based in West Bromwich that focuses on the design, manufacture, installation and maintenance of air conditioning, air handling, heat recovery and data centre cooling equipment. Its clients include Tesco, M&S, BT and Cable & Wireless!

What they need to be better know for though is their commitment to reduce carbon emissions. Weatherite's innovation in this field is tremendous considering the size of the company. Its new ADsorption chiller trigeneration system is fascinating because uses waste heat from power generation to provide chilled air and liquid. It can even run off solar energy.

It is a pleasure to work with the company and help them highlight a UK manufacturing and engineering success story.

Gareth


Gareth Edwards
Arrowsmith Marketing





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King Edwards VI Stourbridge - Challenge of Management Conference

Great day yesterday as a volunteer mentor for the Challenge of Management event at King Ed's sixth form college in Stourbridge.

The event, organised by Karen Brailsford at the college and hosted by Graham Stewart of Inspiring Futures (http://www.inspiringfutures.org.uk) was set up to help year 12 students to start thinking about the skills and attitudes that they might need to make the most of student and work life.

That's a stuffy description of what was a really fun day. As always (and this is the third time I have been involved) the perceptiveness and enthusiasm of the students was astounding. My group were able to solve some complex problems, shift from individual work to team work in the blink of an eye, and offer loads of creative ideas for new products and services.

I was delighted that my team (Team Carrot) one first prize for their 2 minute TV Ad for the silent hoover - just rewards for their thoughtful approach and hilarious role play.

If anybody gets chance to support these sorts of activities or perhaps get involved in something like Young Enterprise then take it up straight away. It's good for the soul!.

Gareth

Gareth Edwards
Arrowsmith Marketing





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Twitter as a business tool

Relax.

I don't know when Twitter will be seen as a mainstream business tool.

It is already a multi niche business tool. It attracts an audience. That's why the B2B Centre uses it to let people know about events or new articles. That's why econsultancy uses it. That's why Picklejar Communications uses it.

They all know or believe that the Twitter audience are people they want to deal with and are interested in what they do.

Would I base an entire marketing plan on Twitter...maybe not. DO I think that it will be around in a year or 2 years as a channel to market...don't know. Nowadays I look out for opportunities for clients in the here and now as well as the long term. I don't worry if Twitter is permanent or if Facebook will still be the in-thing tomorrow, because if they aren't then I will find another channel or a better way of doing things.


Gareth Edwards
Arrowsmith Marketing





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Success with Social Media - B2B Centre Seminar

Great Social Media seminar at the National B2B Centre yesterday.

The new auditorium in the IDL was full for the first time which was great but daunting. We managed to keep the audience happy even though they spanned a range of knowledge from novice to expert.

• Mike Nevin from Alliance Best Practice opened everybody's eyes to the power of LinkedIn.
• Malene Stanley of KSB Kids gave a great account of how she has developed Facebook into a powerful sales and marketing channel.
• Adam Dent of Advent Communications gave a real insight into using PR.

Good stuff.

Gareth Edwards
Arrowsmith Marketing





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Waterra - Customer Survey

My client Waterra UK (groundwater monitoring equipment specialists), has just completed its 2009 customer survey and started to release the results via the Waterra blog.

They have highlighted a very high customer satisfaction score and the fact that most of the respondents would give them a referral to other people .

The survey was completed by my old friend John Savage at 4sight Business Development who has become something of a specialist in the customer survey field.

Gareth Edwards
Arrowsmith Marketing





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Lewis Smith & Co. Acquisition Work

Craig Beale, acquisition specialist at Lewis Smith & Co. the Dudley based accountancy firm, played a big part in a recent acquisition success for the company.


Gareth Edwards
Arrowsmith Marketing





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Seth's got it right - You aren't your own customer

Great blog from Seth Godin - http://sethgodin.typepad.com/seths_blog/2009/05/your-world-vs-the-world.html

It is a great idea to consider who your different audiences really are. It takes a couple of minutes brainstorming to think beyond the obvious...customers. There are, for instance, nearly always other people involved in the sales cycle. People who influence, people who pay, people who sign-off etc. etc. There are people further removed who you might want to talk to. The market prospects, leads, industry experts, the press, your Mum.

When you have a better feel for who all of these people are then you can try our old trick of putting on their hat (literally and metaphorically) to understand what they are interested in and how they might want to receive information.

Very helpful in defining your marketing campaign or using social media more effectively.

Gareth

Gareth Edwards
Arrowsmith Marketing
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