| Sales of riding boots are going at a canter for a Black Country business thanks to the efforts of a talented local marketing graduate. Sowerby's of Stourbridge is receiving orders for footwear from all over the UK and from as far away as the United States, Kuwait and Austria following a revamp of its marketing strategy. Rachel Smith, who has a First Class degree in Marketing from the University of Wolverhampton, developed the marketing strategy during a 12-week placement at Sowerby's. Since starting at Sowerby's, Rachel has drawn up and documented a new marketing strategy for the business, improved its website and corporate literature, gathered information for a customer database and been involved in direct mailing and mail order activities. "In today's world, marketing is a highly important activity which sadly can be overlooked by small businesses such as ours," said Mr Sowerby. "I realised that it was not enough just to attend shows and sell boots. We have to promote ourselves to our customers and make them aware of what we have to offer. As the business has grown we have found that it is almost impossible to be competent at everything. Rachel being here has made us aware of our previous shortcomings and with her help we now have a good platform on which to manage our marketing operations more effectively. We have seen a surge in responses to the web site. We have been getting between 200 and 300 hits a day and these are developing into hard orders. Hopefully, we will soon be able to increase the number of jobs in this side of the business." Mr Sowerby added: "Undoubtedly, we have benefited from Rachel's expertise. More small businesses should take advantage of the resources available through our universities. Graduates have so much to offer and we, in turn, have much to offer them." |
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