Our South Downs
Let’s Do Marketing supported the South Downs National Park Authority to raise awareness of and expand its sustainably minded business network – Our South Downs – growing their membership by 200%!
Our South Downs is a community created to support local businesses in and around the South Downs National Park in their pursuit of sustainability. They help micro and small businesses to connect with one another, as well as share and develop skills, learning and resources.
Beginning back in February 2023, we were commissioned to grow membership numbers from its starting point of 130 by utilising our existing partnerships and business connections. Recognising the need to spread awareness of the network itself and the benefits of being a member, our approach was multi-channel, using PR, print advertising, social media, paid social campaigns, case studies, and email outreach.
Growing a following with social media
Hoping to reach smaller business across the region, we created an Instagram channel for Our South Downs. Through weekly posting and community engagement we were able to grow their following from nothing to over 600 followers. The social media account focused on highlighting businesses that are apart of the network, schemes within the park, and workshops. Social traffic from sharing across their channels as well as our own meant the traffic to their social accounts grew by 6,972%!
Awareness through advertising
We used a variety of ways to advertise the network across social media channels and Google. On Facebook, we tried a variety of ad creative which resulted in the video ad working best – all Facebook ads reached a combined 26.5k people. Our approach to LinkedIn was done on a more personal level with a conversational ad to encourage signups. This was targeted to high-level executives in the area and resulted in a 79% open rate.
Reaching out to businesses
We sent out over 30,000 outreach emails to businesses in and around the South Downs National Park to share the news of the free network and the benefits of joining. We also utilised our contacts within the District Councils, Chamber of Commerce’s, and other business organisations to help spread the word. Almost 200 letters were sent out to businesses with 100+ employees within the agriculture, tourism, and manufacturing industries detailing the network as well as a leaflet that details the Protector and Guardian Scheme.
Ending on a high with the competition
In January 2024, we announced a competition to promote the network. The winner received a free place on the Green South Downs Programme and a hamper of locally sourced produce with items kindly donated from Long Man Brewery, Noble & Stace, Folkington’s, and Liquid Spirit. The activity for this included newsletter insertions, paid social advertisement, organic social posts, and PR. This competition resulted in almost 100 new members alone.
“The SDNPA were pleased to work with Let’s Do Marketing, part of Let’s Do Business Group, on helping us make more businesses aware of the Our South Downs business network and its sustainability goals. The contract delivered the growth numbers we hoped for and we were impressed with how quickly they helped us to establish and grow a new Instagram user base from zero. We found them to be creative, responsive and above all, highly professional partners.”
As a result of the work we’d done over the year, SDNP benefited from a web traffic increase of 298%, with over 1000 users in six weeks. On completion of the project, the Our south Downs business network had a total of 371 members.