Opus Energy is one of the UK’s leading independent business energy suppliers. The company employs over 600 people between its Northampton and Oxford offices. Opus Energy supplies more than 200,000 business locations across the UK with energy. In addition, Opus Energy also purchases power from over 1500 renewable generators in the UK, which it then supplies to its customers.
Opus Energy was keen to show its commitment to working with SMEs and increasing the traction it has with this audience.
Recent research from the energy firm revealed 54 per cent of UK SMEs believe time pressure is holding back the growth of their company. And, while many businesses see marketing as vital to growth, the research also found that 40 per cent say a lack of budget is the biggest barrier to undertaking more marketing and PR, followed by a lack of expertise (25 per cent) and time (25 per cent).
Business boost for SMEs
Following this research, and to show its commitment to supporting UK SMEs, Opus Energy launched its ‘Business boost’ competition on Facebook. It offered the chance for an SME to win a marketing package worth £10,000.
The aim of the competition was to give UK businesses a ‘boost’ to help them grow. The team at Opus Energy worked with marketing and PR agency McCann Birmingham to develop a flexible package to suit the different needs of companies across various industries. The prize included marketing advice, a PR toolkit and print advertising in a key title. All businesses had to do to win was upload their company details to the competition app on Facebook, and secure the most votes.
The competition was promoted via social media – including promoted Facebook and Twitter posts – online advertising and a media relations campaign targeting national, regional and trade media.
To support the competition, Opus Energy also launched a dedicated website as a new resource for SMEs. The website gathers the latest news and advice for small businesses in one place, to help those wanting to keep up-to-date, but with limited time to do so. All of the articles on the site are produced with an SME owner in mind, and include topics such as how to use social media as a business, recruitment strategy, obtaining government grants and email marketing.
The winning business
The winner of the competition was Telford-based managed IT services provider, Rockford IT, beating almost 250 businesses from around the UK to take the top prize.
Rockford IT is a managed IT solutions and service provider with more than 10 years’ experience in managed hosting, communications, IT security and disaster recovery solutions. It has two high security data centres in Telford and one in Liverpool. It works with a range of customers from small businesses to multinationals.
Nick Deane, marketing and sales manager at Rockford IT, explains what the prize means to the business: “As a small business we’re continually stretched, both from a people and a financial perspective, so it’s really valuable for a company like us to get a marketing boost on this scale as it is not something we’d normally be able to do.”
As soon as Rockford IT was announced as the winner, Opus Energy met with the company to discuss the most effective way to put the £10,000 package in to action. This resulted in it being split into £5000 of advertising space to run online and print advertorials in a key trade title, a toolkit press pack and advice on how to implement a marketing strategy.
Darren Kirby, managing director at Rockford IT, explained: “We chose to use our prize to cover an online and print advertising package in IT sector media and we found the advice package and toolkit press materials really useful. As a smaller business, we don’t have huge resources of time or budget to plough into big marketing campaigns. So from our perspective, the prize package offered by Opus Energy was ideal for us as it provided a boost while still allowing us to focus on the day-to-day running of the company and our plans for growth.”
Results
Lynn Morrison, marketing manager at Opus Energy, explained why the business energy supplier offered the prize: “It’s great to be able to support companies like Rockford IT because they are at the heart of our business. We only supply energy to businesses, so are committed to working with SME owners to give them the products, services and advice they require to help them get on with running their own operations. We believe this is crucial as we know many of them play multiple roles and face ongoing time pressures. The ‘Business boost’ competition was one element of this support as we look at practical ways we can help our customers to grow.”
As well as the boost given to Rockford IT, Opus Energy’s main website, social media channels and new Opus Energy Gift website all saw increased traffic and engagement. Traffic to its website has increased by 20 per cent from campaign launch, and its Facebook page received almost 2000 post likes during the campaign – a substantial number given that it focused on SMEs.
Opus Energy also ran a cohesive content strategy throughout the campaign. This achieved a positive SEO impact, enabling its owned channels to achieve higher rankings on Google.
