Sixty Years of Austin Healey Sprite and MG Midget

It's the 60th Birthday of one of Britain's favourite sports cars - the Austin Healey Sprite and MG Midget. The Midget & Sprite Club has organised a celebration of this milestone at Wroxhall Abbey Hotel on Sunday 26th August 2018. This prestigious venue isn't far from where the first Frogeye Sprite prototype rolled off the production line in Warwick.

The Midget & Sprite Club approached Harlequin Media Consultancy to create and distribute PR about the event to Classic Car Magazines and local newspapers in the areas that manufactured the marque - Warwick, Abingdon and Longbridge.

Promotion for the event is now well underway, so let's hope that this great British sports car gets the birthday it deserves. The general PR release is detailed below with links to the Club's website.


SIXTY YEARS OF AUSTIN HEALEY SPRITE AND MG MIDGET

Sunday 26th August 2018, Wroxall Abbey Hotel CV35 7NB

In 1956 BMC boss Leonard Lord tasked Donald Healey with developing “a sports car that a chap could keep in his shed.”

The result was the Mark I Austin Healey “Frogeye” Sprite which was unveiled to the motoring press at Monte Carlo in May 1958. The cheeky look of the simple little sports car was an instant hit. Over a period of 21 years of production there were fourteen different versions with production ending on 7th December 1979, the last vehicle being a Black 1500 Midget.

To mark 60 years of “Spridgets” the single marque Midget and Sprite Club is organising a great gathering of Sprites and Midgets at Wroxall Abbey, not far from Healey’s Cape Works in Warwick, on August Bank Holiday Sunday 26th August 2018. Significant and historical Sprites and Midgets will be on Show, as well as a ‘Pride of Ownership’ competition. Trade stands and food stalls will be on site and all owners of Sprites, Midgets and derivatives are welcome. Entry is £10 per car to include a commemorative Rally Plaque and Goody Bag.

Booking details are on the Midget and Sprite Club website at http://www.midgetandspriteclub.com/sprite-60th/

For more information about this event or the Midget and Sprite Club,
please contact Stuart Watson stuart@thewatsonz.com

Main picture courtesy of Classic and Sports Car Magazine

BMB Structural Steel gets the works online!

BMB Structural Steelwork already had a great-looking website that was well-positioned on Google searches and had good click through stats for many keywords applied to the business.

However, the site wasn't generating the level of enquiries expected for such an investment, so Harlequin was asked to audit the website and look at ways of improving it.

It didn't take long to realise that the main home page graphic, whilst being a dramatic and eye-catching picture of one of the workers using an arc welder, took up most of the screen. This pushed all the relevant information about BMB's services out of shot and didn't really show what they manufactured.

Harlequin worked with the web developers to improve the home page with 3 sliding graphics that illustrated BMB's core business, with 3 further graphics below that linked to the separate services - Structural Steelwork, Architectural Steelwork and House Building Steelwork. We then went onto re-write and design many of the information pages and completely overhaul the gallery and blog sections.

Whilst the web developers worked on the website changes, we set about creating a social media presence for BMB. Facebook and Linked In company pages were created, along with Twitter and Instagram accounts. We then started populating these social media channels with pictures and content from the wide variety of projects BMB had completed in recent years.

With the website completed and a manageable cross-section of social media for BMB's staff to handle, we gave the staff an insight of how to be pro-active with their social media and use it to prospect for work, rather than hope that the channels would trawl it in for them.

The project has been a great success, with more enquiries coming from the website and even more coming from the Sales Team having better tools to prospect with.

Harlequin at the Stourbridge Rugby May Weekend

Every year, Stourbridge Rugby hosts its May Weekend, the biggest series of events it stages outside of the National 2 North and Midlands 1 West rugby fixtures. The May Weekend has built up a prestigious reputation over recent years.

The weekend consists of three different events - on Friday the Corporate Lunch, Saturday the May Ball and a Charity Event on Sunday.

The 2017 events were the biggest to date, with the Corporate Lunch hosting over 1500 guests who were treated to a fantastic afternoon. England Head Coach, Eddie Jones and former Head of the CBI, Lord Digby Jones were the main speakers, with a special appearance by Glen Ella. Phillip Serrell performed the auction and John Bentley was MC.

The May Ball continued the celebrations and on Sunday, the Club hosted a Charity match between current and past Stourbridge stars.

Harlequin Media was involved with the promotion of the whole weekend with traditional and digital marketing, as well as producing a range of items to use on the day - posters, tickets, e-tickets, website stories, Facebook events, lunch programmes and menus, table plans and lists, Stourbridge Rugby sponsorship opportunities leaflets, bar signage, sponsors logos formatted for the big screens, competition envelopes, waiters' order pads, and so on...

Harlequin also came up with the idea of the May Lunch Twitter competition. Guests are invited to follow the @StourbridgeRFC Twitter account, then post a tweet mentioning @StourbridgeRFC #SRFCMayLunch and their table number. Sometime during the afternoon, all of the mentions are scrolled and one of the guest speakers chooses a tweet. The winning table is presented with a Magnum of Champagne. This simple idea increases the followers for the Twitter account and helps the hashtag to trend for the afternoon.

Harlequin worked with the Club to ensure that all of the events were promoted as extensively as possible and making sure that everything required to make the day run smoothly turned up in good time - we even helped on the day!

The countdown to this year's May Weekend has already begun - so SAVE THE DATES!!!

Friday 4th May - Corporate Lunch
Saturday 5th May - The Royal Ball
Sunday 6th May - Community Charity Rugby Event

If you would like help promoting your products and events on a variety of media, or just need some design and print done, contact us on communicate@harlequinmediaconsultancy.com

Immediate Results from SEO work for Jetstyle Services

A few weeks ago, we were approached by an old design and print client to have a look at the positioning of their website on Google searches.

Jetstyle Services had launched its website a couple of years ago, but online sales of their Whirlpool Bath & Spa Bath range of fragrances, bath salts and cleaners were disappointing.

They had been advised to start an Ad Word or Facebook PPC campaign in order to rectify this. However, Harlequin Media Consultancy noticed that they had poor organic rankings on key searches that relate to their products. We decided that the best course of action would be to improve these rankings before attempting PPC campaigns to see if there was enough of a market to justify spending more on promoting the products.

Some of the keyword search were ranked as low as 56th on page 6 of a Google search, the highest at 12th on page 2. Working with the web developer, making some adjustments to the wording on the website and in the hidden info that only Google sees, improving all social media channels and introducing a Jetstyle Blog, all improved the rankings with immediate effect. In fact, the main keyword searches all now appear on Google's first page near the top.

Traffic through to the website immediately improved and with it, sales started to come in, proving that a PPC campaign could improve sales further. We are currently working on suitable Adwords and Facebook campaigns - so watch this space for more news.

Publishing Newsletter Design, Print and Distribution

Every month at Harlequin, we manage a job that goes back to our roots - design, print and distribution.

The publication is an 8 page newsletter that is sent out in a pack to 1600 independent Newsagents to promote the magazine and newspaper titles they need to be promoting in the coming month. Each pack contains the newsletter and a number of items of point-of-sale (PoS) to help the newsagents promote selected titles.

The raw info, images and adverts for the newsletter and PoS are sent through in the middle of each month and turned around in a day into the initial proofs. The proofs are sent out by our customer to the individual publishers for approval and with a bit of fine tuning, the final artwork is sent to print a day later.

With the job at print stage, preparation for packing begins. Any supplied PoS is collated and packed into the pre-printed envelopes, ready to receive the newsletters and PoS when they come off the production line.

As the recipient list is ever-changing, a new distribution list is supplied every month. The customer has a number of main distribution hubs, with satellite hubs they in turn distribute to. Harlequin packs the envelopes, then boxes the correct number for each satellite hub and delivers to each of the main hubs for distribution.

If you would like more information on any of our Design, Print Management, Distribution or Digital Marketing Services, please do not hesitate to contact us on 07875 337295 or e-mail communicate@harlequinmediaconsultancy.com

PDF File Conversion

Have you been supplied with a PDF file that you can't edit?

Harlequin Media Consultancy can convert PDF files to Microsoft Word, PowerPoint or Excel; or Photoshop PSD or jpeg files for you, which makes them fully editable. You can then use them for presentations, seminars, or inclusion in wider documents.

PDF Conversion Prices
£5.00 set-up charge and £2.50 per page.
e.g. a 10 page document would cost a total of £27.50 + VAT

Discounts are available for larger documents. More complex formatting requirements will be quoted on a job-by-job basis.

For more information, call 07875 337295 or e-mail communicate@harlequinmediaconsultancy.com

Social Media Services from Harlequin

With social media's ever-increasing popularity, it is becoming riskier for businesses to ignore this medium.
At the very least, having a correctly set up social media presence will make a company or its brands 'discoverable', not only on social media channels, but on search engines as well, helping to raise organic rankings.

At it's best, social media can promote engagement from existing and potential audiences, activity that can be interacted with, spreading the word and converting into sales. New products, services, special offers, case studies, competitions, reviews and recommendations can all reach a wider audience very quickly through social media.

If you don't have a social media presence yet and don't know where to start, Harlequin Media Consultancy can do all the hard work for you. If you have the channels in place, but are unsure whether they are working for you or not, we can audit your channels to make sure that they are.

Staff Training
When your social media channels are set up and making a positive contribution to your marketing efforts, Harlequin can train your staff to ensure that social media continues to be used effectively for you.

If you would like more information, please don't hesitate to contact us on 07875 337295 or e-mail communicate@harlequinmediaconsultancy.com

Here's a few examples of social media that we've set up or currently manage:

Harlequin - Facebook

Harlequin - Twitter

Harlequin - Linked In

Stourbridge RFC - Facebook

Stourbridge RFC - Twitter

Stourbridge RFC - Linked In

Stourbridge RFC - Linked In Business Network Group

Stourbridge RFC - Blog

Chalkboards UK - Facebook

Chalkboards UK - Twitter

Chalkboards UK - Blog

WoodenBox UK - Facebook

WoodenBox UK - Twitter

WoodenBox UK - Blog