The beginning of things is at once exciting, scary, hard work and absorbing. Just when you need to be reaching out to new customers and filling them with confidence you find yourself sucked into a spiral of detail from which there feels like there is no escape - and the details can be miniscule.
MacDonald Tait has been going for a skinny 6 months now. We are specifiers and distributors of LED lights based in Norfolk, UK. We aren't just sepcifiers - our technical and sales teams have brilliant and unique empathy with both the clients and the buildings. They really, and very deeply, care about space and light - so when they specifiy a product it is from a position of real expericence and knowledge that this product will do the job. And we aren't just distributors of any old rubbish. The LEDs manufacturers we work with are great, top quality, high end, technologically advanced innovators who make great products.
So why couldn't we come up with a phrase that would encourage our customers to visit our website on the basis of our very first email marketing campaign.
The list of recipients was finely honed. The first 500 had been met or had personal connection with the Marketing and Sales Director (so they weren't receiving this informatio cold).
"We need a phrase that lets people know what this technology will change forever the way that they think about light - it brings a whole new energy equation to lighting buildings, it's about sustainability beyond anything we have ever seen before", says the Marketing Chap
"How about 'Visit our website'?", says Finance Chick
"But that doesn't tell you how important it is to understand new techology and to know that it is changing so fast that last year's products are already old hat. It also doesn't say anything about us - I am not just a salesman - we need to show how much experience we have and how unbelievably difficult it is to understand the quality and range of LEDs - if you get the wrong one it can cost you a fortune"
"How about 'Visit our Website - it's great and we're great'?" says Finance Chick
"Great! Great! We need a different word to describe the combination of the elements....."
"Ummm - great, excellent, fantastic, exemplary, amazing, wonderful, top-quality, really, really good, phenominal, experienced, premium...."
"Those just sounds TRITE"
At this stage the discussion was not going well. A creative impass, one might say - only that would suggest two ideas were jostling it out, it was really more of your creative cul de sac.
Now, at this moment in an airport business book a guru would introduce the sparky scheme that rockets the business straight from zero to more visitors to our website that there were to the last X-factor vote. But the Guru doesn't live with us so Marketing Chap (that's him) and Finance Chick (that's her/me) went with the following:
Ian Peter MacDonald and Vivien Tait are pleased to introduce MacDonald Tait Light - specifiers and wholesalers of effective LED lighting for commercial and architectural projects.
Effective LEDs will dramatically improve lighting in so many ways and for many years. MacDonald Tait Light can bring you these benefits now.
So contact us by email or phone – and visit our website for more information on a new technology.
Part L 2 building regulations are now in force and require 45 Lm/W for domestic and 55 Lm/W for commercial buildings. MacDonald Tait Light specify LED solutions which satisfy these criteria.
We are still working on finding the perfect phrase...
