Growing Somerset’s SMEs

The Challenge

Somerset County Council and four Somerset District Councils joined forces to fund and launch an exciting new scheme, to give start-ups and early-stage businesses the best chance of success: Somerset Catalyst. Part of a wider business support programme that launched across the county in 2020, the initiative invited businesses of all stages to enter for support, mentoring and workshops, so to develop their ideas and launch into the marketplace and/or grow. ADPR’s challenge was to manage the entire launch process, including developing branding, building and populating the website and other content, undertaking market research to ascertain the needs of the business community, generating excitement for the programme and securing entries from a viable, advertising campaign, and managing interesting and high-potential individuals across the county.

The Solution

Working alongside local partners we:

• Designed and completed research with businesses and professionals from across the county, to find out what issues local businesses were facing, their plans for the future, what support and guidance they need, and what help would drive growth in the county
• Developed branding concepts and guidelines to inspire local entrepreneurs and businesses – including logos, banners, advertising artwork, graphics and marketing materials
• Created website wireframes, designs and processes, and drafted content to inspire and educate the business community, whilst driving interest to encourage applications – all hosted and managed online
• Researched and managed advertising campaigns to drive maximum awareness and applications for the new programme
• Drafted expert content for news releases, articles and other platforms to drive awareness and excitement for the programme, as well as to encourage applications
• Encouraged and managed applications from a wide variety of sizes, sectors, specialisms and scale-up plans
• Supported and attended expert workshops to upskill and inspire the programme delegates, as well as delivering a specialist marketing workshop for the delegates
• Implemented 1:1 business review panels, offering support and advice as to the businesses’ recommended next steps
• Designed and implemented a Somerset Catalyst newsletter, to keep all stakeholders, businesses and partners involved in the news and updates of the programme, as well as driving awareness to the next annual programme

The Results

Our programme of activity drove relevant businesses to the new website and with a window of just 6 weeks from launch to deadline, we secured 50 high-quality applications for the programme, 10 of which were selected.