In challenging economic times, keeping your existing customers engaged and making them feel valued is just as important as getting new ones. But who exactly are your most important customers?

Here's a simple 80/20 exercise to help you find out:

Step 1
Make a column that lists in descending order of spend, every customer you've dealt with over the last twelve months (and how much they've spent). Biggest at the top, smallest at the bottom.

Step 2
Add them all up and calculate 80% of the total. Note to self: remember this number!

Step 3
Add another column which lists a running total of the first column - all the way down to the bottom.

Step 4
Find the number in your running total that's closest to the one you remembered earlier and draw a line under it.

Ask yourself this question:
Considering the companies above the line account for 80% of your revenue, when was the last time one of your sales team took the time to go and see them or maybe picked up the phone just to say 'hello'?

Targeted 80/20 marketing campaigns are just one of the ways we at Central Designs are helping our clients look after their most important customers and identify new ones.

Press Release

Marketing agency Central Designs has won a contract from a fellow Newcastle-based firm.

Business telecoms specialists Qualitel has hired Central to promote MobiteQ, a voice, data and applications exhibition being held at the Brittania Stadium in Staffordshire.

Central will be running postal and email campaigns to encourage local businesses to visit the event next month.

Managing director Simon Hilton said: "We are delighted to have been given the opportunity to promote the MobiteQ expo"

"Working alongside another successful local company such as Qualitel, we feel we have the right mix of marketing in place in order to achieve their aims"

Qualitel managing director Mike Ridgway added: " We are pleased to be working with Central Designs on this project"

"We know the MobiteQ expo will be of real benefit to local companies who attend and we are determined to convey this message. Central Designs have taken on board our brief and created a really innovative piece of marketing"

MobiteQ is on the 8th and 9th of June

Sad though it may be, at Central we’re a bit OCD about self adhesive labels. You won’t find us creeping around the supermarket peeling back the corner of the barcode label on a jar of pickled gherkins to see if it’s a water based acrylic or rubber hot-melt adhesive they’ve used, but we do get quite excited when something new in the world of sticky labels comes along.

Enter the 2 dimensional barcode. They look like a Sunday Times crossword that’s been shrunk to the size of a postage stamp and they’re very clever.

Logistics companies have been using them for a couple years now because they can hold a lot more information than a traditional EAN 13, but it’s not the amount of data that’s the clever bit it’s what you can now do with it.

Unlike their 1 dimensional brothers, 2D barcodes can be encoded with text, an email address or even a URL. Smart phone app’s from the likes of Apple and Google can then de-code them automatically and take the user to a specific web page, open a new email and address it or even send a text. Imagine that, a single-click mechanism that puts existing and potential customers exactly where you want them.

So what’s the implication for self adhesive labels? Imagine a cleaning product manufacturer who’s legally obliged to put risk & safety phrases in several different languages on their label but has no room left to print other useful (but none-obligatory) information. Or a food ingredients manufacturer with hundreds of great ways to use their yummy liquid chocolate but no space to tell anybody about them.

They might not know it, but by including a 2D barcode in their label designs both companies have actually got all the marketing space they’ll ever need. It’s called their website!!

But it’s not just additional space a 2D code can bring. It’s great interaction between the brand and consumer, it’s driving traffic to your website, it’s setting you apart from the competition and it’s ADDING VALUE!

There’s already 3 million+ smart phones in the UK alone, with 300 million websites across the globe and 6.5 billion people looking at them.

2D barcode labels are a brilliant way to bring them all together with a single click.

Luckily for you, Central Designs is the UK’s leading provider of integrated 2D barcode marketing solutions. We’ve had 17 years experience of producing self-adhesive labels and packaging solutions for the food, pharmaceutical and medical device sectors and just as many building content rich websites for an equally broad range of industries.

2D or not 2D, that is the question!

Brand Development

CentralDIRECT is our brand new e-marketing service available from the 1st of March.

We'll help you formulate a strategy for your campaign, design a bespoke master template for your e-shots and even help you write the copy.

It doesn't stop there.

Once you're happy with the content, we'll convert it to HTML (computer geek talk for the right way to send out an e-shot!), look after the broadcast itself, and make sure any unsubscribes are handled properly.

CentralDIRECT - The new way to connect

Strategy formulation Bespoke master template Conversion to HTML Database hosting and administration Handle broadcast, bounce-backs & unsubscribes Personalised content (variable data fields)