Background Concept Conferences is a venue-finding service located in the north west of England that has a large client list located throughout the UK. Their work is largely carried out by telephone, so there are only limited opportunities to build up personal relationships with clients. Concept was going through a re-branding at the time of the launch of the first issue.
Conference organising is a very competitive and growing field; in fact, the norm is not to charge the client anything for the service but instead take a commission from the venue. Concept needed regular contact with their existing clients to encourage repeat business.
Brief
Highlight the personality of the manager to encourage trainers/administrators to call
Keep clients updated on offers/new developments in a variety of venues
Use testimonials to establish credibility
Approach
Using a first person voice, the newsletter, Concept Update, appears 'written' by the manager in a friendly style. The new corporate branding was used in the design of the newsletter which is laid out in a busy and lively style. The readership is very prescribed so the communication is quite personal although there is always useful venue information for the reader. Testimonials are followed up with interviews and written as news stories. As a way of tracking readership there is a free competition in each issue, usually for a weekend away, encouraging useful feedback from clients.
