UK Trade & Investment: Chord helps boost International Trade

Since 2011, Chord has been commissioned to deliver 57 international trade-related campaigns on behalf of UKTI, across six regions, building on a track record of support going back to 2006.

During 2014/15, Chord started supporting UKTI’s national ‘Exporting is GREAT’ campaign to get UK companies exporting.

Targeting Medium Sized Businesses (MSBs)

Chord supported the national UKTI marketing campaign across six UK regions targeting MSBs (businesses with a turnover of £25-£500m) – including London, South-East, South-West, East Midlands, West Midlands and the North-West.

There are c.10,000 MSBs and they represent just 0.2% of all UK firms, yet account for approximately 20% of private sector employment and turnover. Additional government funding of £10m was allocated to provide tailored support for MSBs to target new export markets.

Chord developed a campaign, including a robust administrative process, to follow up a direct mail letter sent to non-UKTI clients from Lord Livingston, Minister of State for Trade and Investment to:

• Identify director-level decision-makers with the means, authority and need to take decisions about company growth through exporting.
• Verify export status with decision-makers and encourage them to engage with UKTI.
• Offer a face-to-face appointment or a telephone appointment within four weeks.
• Validate data including primary markets and barriers to export.
• Encourage companies to opt-in to receive MSB e-bulletins.

Chord delivered support opportunities for more than 1,900 MSB businesses, playing a small part in helping to boost the UK economy we hope.

Targeting Small & Medium Sized Enterprises (SMEs)

UKTI headquarters initially commissioned Chord to undertake a telephone follow up to a direct mail campaign targeting SME potential and existing exporters in the north-west region, for UKTI International Trade Advisers (ITAs) to discuss support packages for:

• Passport to Export (P2E) – providing new and inexperienced exporters with the skills and support.
• Gateway to Global Growth (G3) – providing experienced exporters with strategic review and planning.
• Overseas Market Introduction Service (OMIS) – enabling first time and experienced exporters to use the services of trade teams located in embassies, high commissions and consulates across the world.

Key to the success of the campaigns and the conversion rates to appointments was targeting companies with a high propensity to export, that were identified via a data modelling exercise, in which Chord played a key role. Profiling calls were then made to identify decision-makers, cleanse the data further and secure qualified appointments.

Chord secured the initial 400 appointments at a 20% conversion rate from decision-makers reached to appointment secured. Importantly too, added-value was delivered by using a lead scoring system, email fulfilment, securing email opt-ins and helping to build a more comprehensive and accurate database. Due to the success of the approach, Chord was appointed to deliver more than 3,500 qualified appointments in total across the North-West, East Midlands, London and South East regions.

Chord also helped UKTI to verify the status of SMEs in the East Midlands to ensure that European Regional Development Fund (ERDF) matched-funding could be provided. A process was developed to verify the SMEs’ status in terms of employees, turnover and ownership and written confirmation secured from a decision-maker via an emailed enrolment form. This data could then be imported into UKTI’s CDMS database for future use.

Chord has also boosted attendance at UKTI workshops and events targeting both SMEs and MSBs, using multi-channel campaign delivery. 60 bookings onto one of two executive ‘Explore your Export Potential’ workshops were secured, that were hosted in Nottingham and Loughborough. These workshops were specifically created for East Midlands-based businesses, enabling them to explore their export potential and providing the opportunity to take some practical first steps in engaging with markets overseas. Chord used the online booking system to add delegates and assign the source of the bookings. To ensure that the workshop was in the attendee’s diary, Chord emailed a meeting request to add to their calendar and only confirmed the booking on receipt of acceptance to this request. Re-confirmation calls were then made by Chord two days prior to each workshop to minimise no-shows on the day.

UKTI has also entrusted Chord with collection of customer satisfaction intelligence. By delivering a combined telephone and web-survey approach Chord helped UKTI measure the effectiveness of the services it delivered for both Passport to Export and Gateway to Global Growth support packages. Use of the telephone showed customers that UKTI really care about the real value of the services delivered and integration of convenient web-surveys meant that customers could provide feedback when and from where they preferred.