Selling On A Shoestring

Increasing awareness & construction tender opportunities

Almost all SMEs face complex challenges when planning for business development. They want to successfully grow their businesses at a pace that carefully matches commercial goals against infrastructure development, but don’t always have the resources at their disposal to do so.

Marland Builders & Contractors was the perfect example of a business with plenty of untapped growth potential. Established in 1909, this solid family-run contracting company had gained a long-standing reputation for quality, reliability and professionalism – in critical trades, such as groundworks, bricklaying and joinery, as well as in the management of an outsourced specialist supply chain.

With extensive experience in residential, public and commercial developments, Marland’s management team were ready to springboard to the next level. But they needed to raise their profile and generate new business leads in difficult trading conditions – without the luxury of lucrative public sector framework clients to fall back on.

In his capacity as Business Development Director, Communisage founder, Mike Cowburn, was able to promote the company’s brand and acquisition activity with a limited budget using a range of imaginative marketing gambits, including:

– a project photoshoot in the North West over 40 site locations
– production of sales collateral, project profiles & case studies
– traditional and e-direct marketing activity & a website upgrade
– utilisation of free local authority planning leads
– production of face-to-face presentation tools & display material
– targeted prospecting & sales development among …
– architects, quantity surveyors and sector-specific clients

Marland entered a new public sector segment, gained enhanced NHS Trust approval and secured six tender opportunities – winning three contracts.

In addition, outreach activity was improved five-fold with 30 tender opportunities realised from new prospects at project values from £5k to £1.5million.