Success stories
Brand and digital channel refresh: LentaSpace
Brief: Lenta are the longest established flexible workspace operator in London. The family-owned, company manages 15 serviced office buildings across the capital. They asked me to review their branding and marketing strategy, to refresh their digital channels ahead of their 40th anniversary in 2021.
Activity: A brand audit revealed that the family feel of the company and the excellent front of house teams were the reason for its long-term success and customer loyalty. This informed the key messaging and content strategy development, focusing on the warm welcome and excellent service that clients receive.
Results: The brand refresh created a unique brand story for LentaSpace in a busy marketplace, bringing focus to what is great about the company. Additionally, the Sales & Marketing team now understand their market position and brand value, which is key to creating content moving forward and when communicating with property brokers.
The refined website customer journey and storytelling drove more direct leads and the strategic content strategy and consistent social media calendar drove followers and social engagement. In 2021, the company’s Spitalfields’s building was shortlisted for the London and Southeast Flexible Workspace Association Customer Service Excellence Award.
Marketing Strategy and Planning: Millie Group
Brief: Millie Group are a US-based education start up, offering holistic education and careers support to international school students applying for topflight US and UK universities. Nearing their second funding round they recognised a need to develop a more strategic approach to their marketing efforts. They asked me to lead in creating a growth marketing strategy and put in place the building blocks needed to develop their brand and communications strategies and create efficient planning and execution.
Activity: After an initial audit of the key customer segments, brand story, portfolio, customer journey and digital channels, I recommended a key set of strategic activity to the Millie team.
Results: Start-ups are fast moving and a flexible approach, whilst working at pace is key. Putting reporting in place enabled the team to monitor and manage KPIs and react to change. Ultimately this enabled them to grow the social platform base, post engagement and increase website key metrics.
The refined communications strategy, segmenting students, schools and parents separately, improved response rates and engagement.
Having a clear strategy and plan enabled the Millie leadership team to create the confidence required to successfully complete their next funding round to further grow the business.
"I've worked with Laurie for c. one year and would highly recommend her to anyone looking for both marketing strategy support and also hands-on marketing support. As a founder wearing many different hats, it is hard to stay on top of things and some important / non urgent matters inevitably always get pushed away. Laurie was a great resource to have as she would be able to both give Chief Marketing Officer-level advise and ideas on how to grow our customer basis, while at the same time being very capable of implementing many initiatives. With Millie, she got involved in a number of areas from high level strategy formulation, such as drafting our monthly calendar plans, down to sorting out our graphic design needs, interviewing our writing candidates, even writing articles and posts herself for our blog, and more. Moreover, Laurie is a great pleasure to work with, extremely efficient with time and always honest and reliable with her advise."
Rebrand and website launch: technologywithin
Brief: I was asked to project manage the delivery of the re-brand and new website for a newly merged technology company. Branding is one of the marketing specialisms where clients often need support and it’s not an area that you want to get wrong, for both cost and reputational reasons.
Activity: I wrote an in-depth agency brief and managed the agency selection process. Agency-fit was key, so I recommended D2, who are a tech player themselves and have strong links with the property market, a target sector for my client.
Results: The relaunch saw technologywithin established as the leading player providing internet and workspace management software in the UK flexible workspace sector. The authenticity and consistency of brand messaging across all channels resulted in 100% client retention, winning new business through website leads, significant revenue growth, industry awards and gaining the respect of their industry.
“Laurie is a brilliant marketeer who brings a wealth of knowledge and experience to any project. She was crucial in the rebrand of our company. Her planning and project management skills ensured that the new branding, from conception all the way through to launch, was a great success. I would highly recommend her to any organisation that’s looking to supercharge their marketing function.”
charity fundraising challenge project management:
The LMAX Exchange Everest Rugby Challenge
Brief: Project manage a unique, fundraising challenge for the children's rugby charity, Wooden Spoon, to take a group of rugby players to Mount Everest, to break two Guinness World Records for the highest altitude games ever played and raise over £200,000.
Activity: In just nine months I delivered every logistical element of the challenge; working with a specialist travel company to deliver the necessary travel documents such as mountaineering permits and Chinese visas and ensuring that the team had appropriate trekking and match kit for the extreme conditions. This even included commissioning a set of rugby posts which could be transported by plane and yak to the top of the mountain.
Results: This colossal project was ultimately successful, raising over £200k for the charity, setting two world records, engaging millions of people through social media, creating huge media attention all over the world as well as a documentary, “Scaling New Heights, Rugby on Everest".
"Laurie is an excellent strategist, project manager and marketer. I have recruited her to work on a number of high profile projects supporting the marketing and fundraising at Wooden Spoon, most recently the Everest Rugby Challenge. Laurie over delivers and creates results that have helped significantly increase charity income and brand exposure. And secured us a Guinness World Record! She is a creative thinker but also extremely pragmatic, a natural leader who listens and sticks to a brief and has become an integral part of the Wooden Spoon team. I would highly recommend Laurie and Perrfect Marketing."
Charity campaign management: Clinks@20
Brief: This small charity needed an extra pair of hands and an objective eye to create a celebratory marketing campaign to recognise Clinks’ 20th year and all that they have achieved. The brief included a digital campaign engaging all stakeholders and the creation of some fun touches for their celebration event.
Activity: Clinks undertake very serious and complex work and the usual tone of their communications fits this purpose. The marketing team realised that something different was needed to mark this occasion and allowed me to propose a lighter campaign tone, whilst still being respectful of their audience and work.
Results: In just five weeks I delivered:
+ A joined up campaign across all channels – by creating a 20th birthday logo to use on all comms, which both differentiated the campaign comms from their regular content and also to give a visual core to the interwoven themes of the digital campaign.
+ A content strategy and social media plan to create engagement with all levels of Clinks’ audience
Emotional - we asked member organisations to create birthday message videos and share on their social platforms. This proved to be very successful with over 20 videos produced – warm, personal and engaging content - resulting in a real social buzz amongst stakeholders.
Factual – To demonstrate Clinks’ achievements we created a series of illustrated social images from statistics lifted from annual reports, over the past two decades in an appealing way.
Intellectual - A blog series, interviewing respected figures in the sector, including Clinks’ founder, explaining what Clinks has meant to them personally and how it has changed the criminal justice landscape over the past two decades.
The combination of the three types of content worked together effectively to convey everything that Clinks do.
+ Fun touches for their celebration event – Helium balloon installations and cupcakes with the birthday logo to give a party feel and a timeline board, showing key events in Clinks’ history.
“It was really lovely working with you on this birthday campaign for Clinks Laurie. Thanks for everything. Our celebration event was fantastic and there was so much social media love and engagement created it will help us reach even more people - our CEO is over the moon.”
Charity campaign management - Wooden Spoon
Brief: Improve the professionalism, individual giving knowledge and project management skills in a small charity.
Activity: I delivered a fundraising raffle campaign, the charities’ GDPR compliance project, managed the individual giving programme and challenge fundraising.
Results: Through these projects I was able to help move the charity forward, instilling a culture of continuous improvement and driving the digital agenda.
“Laurie has been a real asset to Wooden Spoon. She has successfully managed fundraising campaigns and high-profile projects with great tenacity, professionalism and efficiency. She has significantly increased regular giving income, supporter engagement rates and driven our brand forward, ensuring we are setting clear targets and measuring the impact of each project we undertake.“
Social media strategy review - ip-Xchange
Brief: ip-Xchange provide internet, WiFi and telecoms to the flexible workspace sector. Whilst they had a great website, they knew that they needed to drive more traffic to the site and create leads. A review of their social media strategy was necessary to improve their social engagement with existing and potential customers.
Activity: By undertaking a simple audit of the frequency, tone, content and type of posts and results I was able to identify areas for improvement. The creation of a more structured plan with goals, supported by a content strategy and regular review of the right KPIs enabled the team to clearly understand how to manage this channel more effectively.
Results: Clear content strategy, consistent brand tone and varied content type which appealed to clients, leading to improved post engagement, followers and website traffic.
“Laurie’s professional approach and insight helped us to significantly increase our social media output and engagement rate. She provides a clear thinking and targeted approach that really works. We would have no hesitation in recommending her.”
