Competing as a small business: Evoke Telecom

The Angel team were very proud to launch a brand new website for Loughborough-based Evoke Telecom Services Limited yesterday. The website has a clean, fresh design and is fully responsive, making use of the Twitter bootstrap HTML5 and CSS3 framework. A blog making use of WordPress as a CMS will be added shortly that will make good use of social elements to help build the site’s audience. Working with a young business operating in a heavily saturated market, we made a number of decisions that we hope will help Evoke compete with the multi-national businesses occupying the top SERPs over time.

The importance of responsive design

Building a site that looked good across a range of devices was a particularly important aspect of the project, given the growth in use of mobile site visitors. Tablet and smartphone use has nearly doubled over the course of the past year, and mobile share is now around 25% on average.

Source: Smart Insights

There are however only around 1.1 million websites that make use of responsive design. Given that the web now consists of some 1.94 billion pages, the percentage is fairly small. Building a site that’s accessible to a range of devices is therefore one way a small business can rise above some of its competitors.

Incorporating a local feel

Angel has been working closely with Evoke’s Directors over the past few weeks to plan and implement a site that fully reflects Evoke’s local service ethos. Having worked in the Telecoms industry for a combined 50 years, the founders of Evoke were anxious to right the wrongs of that industry – in particular, the lack of personal service and attention. As they grow, telecoms corporations tend to shift their focus away from delivering customer service excellence, in favour of cost cutting. Call centres are moved abroad, staff receive the minimum of training and despite being supposed communications experts themselves, the telecoms giants’ infrastructure is frequently a source of frustration to impatient customers seeking a fast response. Evoke is determined to break that mould, with their customers seeing a return to the personal service associated with local businesses, regardless of Evoke’s national coverage – and this is something we tried to reflect in the website copy. Crucially, Evoke’s customers continue to enjoy the competitive pricing of a national business, thanks to Evoke’s relationships with some of the industry’s most respected names.

Keeping things fresh

The Evoke team were keen for their site to be fresh, modern and uncluttered. Angel incorporated the colours of Evoke’s logo and used plenty of white space and imagery to meet this specification. The ultimate goal of the site is to bring enquiries – and so each and every page includes a contact form and call to action to make contact.

Moving forward

Evoke is already making ripples in the telecoms market – the reputation of its directors in the industry is helping there. But as for any young company, particularly one operating in a saturated market, their future depends on having a solid marketing plan in place that takes account of fierce competition. Angel will continue to work with Evoke over the coming months, our core objectives being:

• To implement a search strategy heavily focused on ranking locally. A site that ticks the local search ranking factors stands a better chance of appearing high in the SERPs locally for otherwise practically unattainable search terms.
• To develop an innovative content strategy. Despite the market being saturated, the quality of jargon-free information written with SMEs in mind is limited and Angel has already identified a number of opportunities for content development around key terms.
• To help the business make best use of social channels. Many small businesses make the mistake of using social to push content to their followers, completely missing the competitive advantage that they have as a small business. Techniques such as joining in on the conversation when users are discussing their product or service (or a related problem) are usually overlooked by industry giants who instead throw thousands at PPC and other bulk advertising methods, remaining faceless to their customers. Small businesses are uniquely positioned to use social in order to develop positive one-to-one relationships with prospective customers.

The Angel team are confident that these focuses are crucial for any small business looking to carve themselves a share of a highly competitive market.

Summary: our top tips for growing businesses:

• Ensure your site is responsive – there’s a good chance many of your competitors’ sites aren’t.
• Focus on local search ranking factors.
• Look for missed opportunities for content development in your industry, especially where the content you find is overly technical.
• Use social to join in the conversation and build real relationships.

Have you launched a site for a client in a saturated market? What are your top tips for getting results when you’re up against companies with multi-million pound marketing budgets?