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Congratulations, You Wiggly Wigglers, You!
I always enjoy reading about small businesses, especially in the UK, who improve their business and enhance their customer relations by embracing the Web. So I was pleased to read recently about a small UK company who have not only transformed their business by using social media to connect to their customers, but have been rewarded for their efforts by a Dell initiative to award small business excellence.
Wiggly Wigglers is a small, Herefordshire based company, operating out of some farm buildings, who are passionate about the gardening products they supply. They have successfully built, and are maintaining, an on-line strategy that includes regular blogging, weekly podcasting, and an active Facebook group.
By adopting social media, and placing it at the core of their marketing strategy, Wiggly Wigglers have reported that their business:
- Serves 90,000 customers worldwide and delivers its products across Europe;
- Cut its advertising budget by 80 percent when the company turned to social media over traditional advertising;
- Built its catalogue based on Wiki ideas generated on its Facebook page by experts and customers.
Congratulations to the team at Wiggly Wigglers, a brave decision to embrace the Web and communicate openly and honestly with their customers is clearly paying massive benefits (not to mention £25,000 worth of Dell products and services!).
Wiggly Wigglers: Gardening through Social Media - and summarises their on-line activity with a glowing reference, and a great checklist for others looking at marketing on-line:
There is a dotted line between being Heather’s podcast listener, blog reader and Wiggly Groupie on Facebook and becoming her customer. Heather is doing several things right from a social media marketing standpoint:
- She has a strong voice. It’s genuine and personable.
- She is passionate about what she writes.
- She informs and educates her customers.
- She offers applicable tips.
- She keeps in touch.
- She encourages product trials with discounts and give-aways.
- Her products have a social angle—they make the world greener.
- She welcomes new friends.
Wiggly Wigglers should be an essential case study, worth, er, studying, for any business looking at enhancing their web presence through social media. If you are considering implementing a social media strategy, making sure you can happily (and honestly) place a tick next to at least 6 of the above tips, will prove a solid foundation for your efforts.
Tags: dell, social media, UK business award, wiggly wigglers
It’s interesting to see that Google use wigglywigglers to back up their AdWords campaign. My latest copy of ‘Director’ magazine contained a £30 AdWords voucher with a picture of Heather Gorringe on the front.
On the reverse of the voucher/flyer, Gorringe asserts that ‘nearly a third of our sales come via the internet’ and she clearly puts this down to AdWords.
So, social media is a tactic that can in many cases be supported by a sensible use of targeted advertising. The AdWords can be seen as a short-term strategy until the full impact of the social media tools is felt.
Thanks Adam for those kind comments - we are proper pleased to have won and for other small businesses I would recommend entering next years award. It has been really good publicity and the prize is a corker too.
We do use google adwords and they have also helped to generate traffic and sales to our site. I think the two method compliment each other well and as Graham says the google adwords are a great short term strategy. We have also been trying facebook ads which have a similar effect