Brand plans for small firms

Paul Wilkes of Volom formulates brand strategies for clients. Photo / Herald on Sunday

The founder of a franchised network of marketing executives says the concept offers small businesses a "virtual marketing department" at a fraction of the cost of hiring their own.

Mathematician and former Saatchi and Saatchi advertising specialist Paul Wilkes set up the Volom network to target what he saw as a gap in the marketing efforts of New Zealand small to medium enterprises' (SMEs).

They often had no marketing plan at all or conducted sporadic promotional initiatives, he said. "We're talking businesses that have a turnover of $20 million to $30 million a year that don't have any thinking around their marketing activity."

Any firm without its own marketing department was a potential client. So far, Volom had a network of 12 marketing specialists around the country who ran their own franchised businesses.

Volom marketers formulated an initial plan and brand strategy for each client at a cost of $10-14,000, then worked on a monthly retainer of $125 an hour for a set number of hours.

The franchise had a network of suppliers to draw on and did traditional activities such as logos, advertising and website design as well as project work.

Wilkes once spent a day interviewing prospective sales directors for an interior fit-out client. For exporter Abbex International he set up a deal exporting Steinlager to Tahiti, which included dealing with brewer Lion Nathan and organising a distributor in French Polynesia.

Abbex owner Greg Abbott said the Steinlager deal required know-how and time.

"Paul has the marketing expertise to be able to deal with these large corporates. He knows what they want to hear."

With a degree in applied mathematics and a post-graduate diploma in statistics, Wilkes fell into marketing. After working for Clear Communications, Telstra and Saatchi and Saatchi, he had experience in the client and agency side of the industry, he said.

Advertising agencies did not have the same focus on marketing strategy. "I like to think things through logically, which is not really a strength of anyone in the creative industry."

But Sven Baker, group chief executive of design and branding consultancy Designworks, said this was exactly what it did for SME clients. "We provide a high level of competency around marketing strategy." The agency offered two or three tiers of work with some designed to be more economical for smaller companies.

Rob Bree, who operates as The Marketing Guy, said the concept of an independent marketing consultant was not new. But he agreed marketing was not second nature to most Kiwi SMEs.

"It's slowly dawning on them that the way to grow your business isn't just through products and services but brands."

Helping hand on deck

Whakatane aluminium boat manufacturer Surtees is "very, very busy", says managing director Phil Sheaff.

Whether this can be put down to the efforts of Volom's Paul Wilkes is hard to say but the company has orders for nearly 200 boats and has recently expanded into the Australian market.

Sheaff uses Volom one day a week and the marketing group has done all sorts - designed new logos for the boats, set up a website and handled its advertising schedule.

It is now moving into some public relations.

"The stuff they do is stuff I would never get around to doing and I wouldn't do it properly."

He was "sceptical" about Volom's idea of getting customers to send photos of themselves with their fishing conquests on their Surtees boats in return for a free packet of bait, and then using the pictures in the company's advertising.

But the campaign has been a great success, Sheaff says.