"Working together we can add value to what we can achieve for our clients"
Neil Corrigan
Multi-tasking may be one of life’s admirable aspirations, but there are times when precise and specific expertise is required. And those experts need to work in harmony: imagine a building site where the bricklayers and the plumbers, the gas fitters and the electricians had no idea what each other was doing.
Collaboration in the creative, marketing and sales sector is exemplified in the strategies employed by two bespoke and distinctive experts in their own fields based in the North West. They happen to work nearby to one another in Kendal; more critically, each has an understanding and appreciation of the other’s skills, knowledge and application.
Creative Lakes has an innovative marketing team, with top ideas and support for business, helping companies and organisations to be much more effective in the way they promote their products and services.
There is certainly evidence of multi-tasking: they have expertise in marketing, with advice, ideas, strategic planning and campaign management, and branding - logos, naming, messaging and application management.
They deal with direct marketing - email campaigns, mailing campaigns and telemarketing, and online requirements: websites, video, ecommerce, search engine optimisation and social media support. If it’s print that’s needed, they can design and create brochures, flyers and point-of-sale materials. They can source and brand suitable promotional merchandising items.
If it’s publicity that’s required, they have specialists in copywriting, press releases, editorial and feature writing. They can arrange online and press promotion advertising, pay-per-click and display adverts. And they can plan, and provide support for, all types of events and workshops.
But within that range, there’s a need for very discrete specialisms, and that’s where SYPO step in. They help clients to sell products online, creating websites with integrated systems to help sell goods of all sizes across the entire price range and throughout the entire world.
When you need your website to ‘talk,’ to your other business systems, such as the booking system, accounts package or stock control manager, that’s where SYPO development skills really shine. They connect systems together in order to streamline processes most efficiently, able to design, build and maintain bespoke software applications and database systems to help clients manage their business critical information.
The two companies have joined forces to great effect for a number of businesses, large and small. They worked in harmony for Clocktower at Milnthorpe in Cumbria, a traditional domestic appliance dealer, the region’s biggest independent retailer of kitchen and other household goods, which needed the extra dimension of an online presence. Creative Lakes designed the website, while SYPO developed not just the online shop, but will be introducing a finance option at the check-out which credit checks the buyer and potentially gives them the opportunity to spread the cost of larger, more expensive appliances.
One of the ideas that Alan and his team came up with during the planning / design of the system was to encourage buyers to provide an email address at the point of sale so that their receipt could be emailed to them, saving paper / printing. This also enables Clocktower to capture data for use in future marketing, plus creating a valuable data asset for the business.
In an entirely different field, Tinbox Angel, a one-woman business selling hand-crafted goods has been transformed thanks to this creative business partnership. Creative Lakes carried out a re-branding exercise and website design while SYPO developed a secure and easy to use online shop.
“They have been absolutely wonderful to work with, giving me fantastic encouragement,” says Tinbox Angel’s Amanda Gallagher. “It’s been quite a journey. Now there will be new products going on the website regularly.”
Says Neil Corrigan of Creative Lakes: “Most agencies can deliver basic brochure websites in-house, but if they need bespoke shops, customisation or integration with other systems (accounting, dispatch, bookings, etc), then SYPO is the ideal partner to have.”
And Alan Jewitt of SYPO returns the compliment: “We are working with a number of creative, design and marketing agencies including Creative Lakes, adding value to their business and their end client projects / deliverables.”
He added: “It says something that most of our work comes from recommendations and referrals.”
