Work Package 6
Dissemination Evaluation
Report
1
Background
The
C2C
Collaborate
to
Compete
dissemination
strategy
involved
a
comprehensive online and offline marketing approach which was lead by
Momentum Marketing and implemented with purpose and creativity by all project
partners during the period October 2008 to September 2010. This evaluation
report provides a summary of the marketing communication channels used, and
assesses their impact in terms of creating an effective word of mouth and word of
mouse (viral marketing) campaign. As a backdrop to this report it is both prudent
and necessary to revisit the dissemination objectives per the original C2C tender
proposal in order to understand the shared vision for the marketing effort among
the project partners and the benchmarks for implementing those efforts on an
international scale.
The dissemination objectives are summarised in the chart
below
Table 1: Work Package 6 – Marketing Dissemination Summary
Activity
Project launch
Timetable
month 1
Involvement of target groups, stakeholders, users etc
Transnational event with the presence of partners and key
SME and VET stakeholders. Press releases will be sent to
newspapers and relevant business journals in order to raise
awareness of the project in the business community and with
potential direct and indirect users.
PR Campaign
ongoing
Direct
Marketing
Campaign
ongoing
C2C has a good story to tell & the PR campaign is considered
vital to the uptake and success of the project website.
Momentum Marketing is highly experienced in Public
Relations and will lead and direct the partner’s efforts to
ensure wide media coverage. Utilising their network of
business journalists both nationally & internationally,
together with professionally written PR pieces and articles
and an overriding emphasis will be placed on publicising the
work aims and outputs of C2C.
Over 10,000 printed publicity pieces including a project
brochure will be despatched throughout the life of the project
to target users and stakeholders based on partners’ and their
networks existing databases. 1,000 organisations will also
receive copies of project updates via ezines, of which at least
four will be produced during the project lifespan and SMEs
can site up for such ezines on the website.
Participative
Study of SME
barriers
to
collaboration
month 6
Direct consultation of more than 140 SMEs and stakeholder
organisations to ensure that the products developed are of
direct relevance to end users. The study will then be widely
disseminated by all partners in their respective national and
international networks including SMEs, Innovation Centres,
SME support services providers, local and national business
development organisations etc
2
Initial
website
month 3
An initial publicity website will be developed with complete
project and partner information and all press releases and
ezines to date, for which SMEs and other organisations can
sign up.
Even at this stage the website will be fully
optimized in terms of search engines and Google Adwords
and will be linked to as many existing innovation and SME
training sites as possible at European and national levels.
Test website
month 12
Web
Optimisation
& Online
marketing
campaign
Month
3
ongoing
transnational
product
launch
Ongoing
commitment
Launch
month 18
Evaluation
results and
key learning
points
month 24
Following the development of learning materials, the full site,
including discussion forum and partner databases, will be
made available to partners and to SMEs who will trial the site
and provide critical feedback on both technical and content
related issues.
Canice Consulting are web-optimisation and internet
marketing specialists with publications including “the handy
little guide to e-tourism” As such the website will be fully
optimized for search engines in order to generate as many
visits as possible, and great emphasis placed on achieving
inbound links as a way of improving search engine rankings.
In addition highly innovative Google Adwords campaign will
be implemented
A full transnational product launch will take place and key
stakeholders will be invited to ensure maximum exposure of
the elearning materials.
In addition, as outlined in their letters of intent, Partners
have committed to funding from their own resources, the
ongoing updating and web-site hosting & maintenance of C2C
in year 3 to achieve a position of self sufficiency for the site.
On completing the project evaluation, the results and key
learning points from the project will be posted on the
website, included in the final ezine and disseminated via
press releases to key media and all relevant stakeholders.
Months
24-36
1. Kick off Project Launch – October 2008
The C2C project launch kicked off with all member partners in Brussels in October
2008. A photo of the project partners at EBN offices in Brussels is provided below.
C2C Kick off Launch Brussels October 2008
Back Row (L-R) Orla Casey, Maggie Ruane, - Momentum Creative Marketing
Services, (Leitrim, Ireland), Miia Tiainen-Paquaux, - The Cluster Competitiveness
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Group (France) Ioan Piturescu, -Institutul National pentru Intreprinderi Mici si
Mijlocii, (Romania)
Front Row (L-R) Khezir Akhtar, - Coventry University Enterprises, (England),
Canice Hamill, - Canice Consulting, (Northern Ireland), Soizic Nelo, - Coventry
University Enterprises, (England), Vera Egreja Barracho,- European Business and
Innovation Centre Network, (Belgium)
This kick off launch provided the perfect platform to begin the PR campaign for
the project with publication of the project’s first press release in the Leitrim
Observer and Roscommon Herald Irish newspapers where Momentum Marketing
head offices are located. A sample of the press coverage in these papers is
illustrated below.
Press coverage C2C Kick off Launch in Brussels
2. Develop a Corporate Brand for the Project
The project partners agreed at this kick off launch meeting that the first core
dissemination activity was to build a C2C brand that would reflect the creativity
and innovativeness of the project in such a way that would transcend member
countries. Momentum Marketing’s design team developed a host of logo options
but one proposal secured consistently high votes across all project partners and
final amendments were made in December 2008. The project logo is presented
below.
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C2C Brand – December 2008
3. Design an eye catching C2C Direct Mail Brochure
The C2C brochure was developed and finalised by February 2010. The original
plan was to print 10,000 copies but the team revisited this later in year one and
agreed that 5K copies would be sufficient since an email version of this could be
disseminated via pdf to additional targets if required. Momentum Marketing
worked with the project partners to create a compelling piece of promotional
material that would reflect the ‘raison d’être’ of the project, articulate its vision
and communicate the approach for the transnational market research.
This brochure became one of the core dissemination media used in year one of
the project. 5,000 were delivered to
A. More than 500 Small and Medium Enterprises (SME) owners, and
business development managers in 7 countries through attendance by
project partners at a host of trade events in Ireland, UK, France,
Spain, Romania, Brussels, Morocco, Germany, Portugal, Poland (see
later section on Events for a complete list).
B. A total of 150+ business development support agencies across Ireland,
UK, Spain, France, Belgium, Romania who provide training mentoring
and grant assistance to small and medium enterprises received an
email version of the brochure
C. Over 120+ training organisations across participating countries whose
primary target audience is the SME sector
D. An email campaign throughout the duration of the project ensured that
the brochure was disseminated to interested agencies and personnel
on a continual basis as requested e.g. as a follow up to leads and
enquiries post a trade or networking event
E. The brochure was also available to download from the C2C Website. A
copy of the C2C brochure is presented below
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4. Develop a database of targeted Groups
Central to the dissemination strategy was the development of a database of
targeted groups to include business support agencies, SMEs (across multiple
sectors) and PR contacts. A total of 1,000 plus business contacts were created
who formed the basis for dissemination the C2C brochure via an extensive email
campaign. Each project partner worked with their own set of clients, and country
specific agencies to ensure that these core lists of contacts were kept up to speed
on the project’s developments.
5. In person sales efforts at International Events
In year one of the project, the project management team developed an online
dissemination page where project partners could upload and share the various
dissemination activities that they were engaged in with the rest of the C2C team.
This proved very beneficial since the project team attended a host of networking
and business related events during the lifespan of the project. This in person
sales effort comprised one of the most effective C2C dissemination tactics which
facilitated an international word of mouth strategy in over 10 EU countries.
A
summary of these events is presented in the table 2 below.
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Table 2: Summary of Dissemination Events for C2C
Date
6/02/09
Type of Activity
Target Market
Formation of the working
Consultants
group for the elaboration of
SMES/Managers
Size of
Country
Short Description
Audience
Targeted
80
Romania
Opportunities to invest in the Eco-
Germany
market have been presented, and the
the "National Plan for the
C2C project were introduced to the
Ecological Agriculture
delegates
development"
15/04/09
The national Council for
SME Managers
100
Romania
The investment opportunities for the
private SMEs organised the
Romanian market were presented to
Entrepreneurs' Day
the delegates and the C2C project tool
was described through the networking
session
12/06/09
first event organised by the
Young Entrepreneurs
National council for Private
SMEs & Managers
100
Romania, Bulgaria
The C2C team presented to the young
Hungary
entrepreneurs the barriers and
SMEs for young
opportunities in the current economic
entrepreneurs: "young
climate and looked at the comparison
entrepreneurs day"
between Romania and other European
economic context with C2C project.
18/06/0919/06/09
International Conference
SMEs, Innovation
stakeholders, European
300
Europe held in
The 18th annual EBN international
Morocco
conference was held in Fez in June
Commission,
2009, in order to promote
Universities, Chamber of
entrepreneurship and networking for
7
Date
Type of Activity
Target Market
Size of
Country
Audience
Targeted
Short Description
commerce, Enterprises
business centres across Europe.
associations
During the conference the C2C project
had a stand in the exhibition area.
People were given the C2C leaflet in
their welcome pack and were able to
speak to members of the team
regarding the project and future
activities. Interested parties were sign
posted to the www.euc2c.com website
to register and consult the training
material once developed.
The conference was very successful
and national and European media were
represented at the event.
02/07/09
International Conference
Innovation
200
Slovenia
Innovation stakeholders, European
stakeholders, European
Commission, Universities, Chambers of
Commission,
commerce, Enterprises associations,
Universities, Chambers
public sector
of
commerce, Enterprises
associations, public
sector
8
Date
23/09/09
Type of Activity
Target Market
Size of
Country
Audience
Targeted
30
UK
Short Description
Divisional Meeting at
Research, technical and
C2C was presented to colleagues and
University
senior management
senior management staff. This permits
Staff
cross-department knowledge diffusion
but also gives updates on the project
delivery and activities.
Colleagues were interested and
proposed to include links to C2C
website or diffuse C2C project
activities to their clients/partners when
appropriate. Each colleague has
received few leaflets to promote the
project through their networks and
contacts.
05/11/09
23/11-24/11/09
Leonardo contact seminar,
VET organisations from
Lisbon, Portugal
throughout EU
World Technology
SMEs, larger companies,
Conference
90
All EU were
Presented short overview of
represented
project, circulated 100 brochures
SMEs, larger
UK technology companies can show off
Universities, Public
companies,
their innovation to global giants like
sector agencies
Universities, Public
Panasonic, Hitachi, Nokia and
sector agencies
Kayagura Health Solutions at the UK’s
400
largest business-matching
TechnologyWorld09.
9
Date
Type of Activity
Target Market
Size of
Country
Audience
Targeted
Short Description
UK Trade & Investment (UKTI) event
provided companies with a platform to
build new international business
with almost 100 of overseas
companies which attended.
The C2C project was represented at
the exhibition area where CUE was
showcasing their ongoing projects.
18.1.2010
Presentation Briefing, Sligo
Third level sector
20
Ireland
IT
26.1.2010
Presentation Briefing,
Presentation on the C2C project to
lecturers and entrepreneur students
Regional authority
10
Ireland
Presentation on the C2C project to
Western Development
regional development organisation
Commissions
staff
27/1/10-
EBN EU projects seminar
BIC, public sector,
28/01/10
and 25th Anniversary
private sector
150
Europe held in
This seminar is part of a cycle of
Coventry
activities that EBN is proposing to its
members and partners with the aim to
increase and improve the
understanding and the operational
translation of EU policies and
programmes into practical initiatives
with successful and useful outputs for
the BIC community.
10
Date
Type of Activity
Target Market
Size of
Country
Audience
Targeted
Short Description
EBN presented their ongoing projects
that they have been actively involved
and C2C was presented to the
audience. The C2C projects was also
promoted with some literatures and
during the networking sessions
11/2/2010
Presentation Briefing,
Community Enterprise
10
Ireland
Centres
02/03/10
Presentation on the C2C project to
business advisors
UKTI: Taking the West
SMEs, Public sector,
100
Europe held in
UK Trade and Investment, and the
Midlands business to
Business support
Coventry
Single European Market Group, invited
Europe
agencies, chamber of
West Midlands businesses to join them
commerce
for this one day seminar on Trading
with the European Union to provide
both expert advice and showcasing the
best the West Midlands has to offer in
European support.
The seminar and workshops will look
at the opportunities for business
arising out of both European Union
Directives but also from the individual
country markets of Europe with the
opportunity to meet country experts
11
Date
03/03/10
Type of Activity
Target Market
Size of
Country
Short Description
Audience
Targeted
100
World held in
This event was the opportunity for
Coventry
West Midlands Businesses to help
UKTI: Taking the West
SMEs, Public sector,
Midlands Businesses to the
Business support
World
agencies, chamber of
them do the first step towards
commerce’s
internationalisation. This seminar is an
ideal opportunity to see what type of
support is available and listen to those
who have done it - including a panel of
already successfully exporting SMEs.
As well as exporting the importance of
innovation and how it can improve a
company' international
competitiveness was discussed - both
in products and market development.
C2C was present in the exhibition area
and was able to promote the project
tool and how businesses that are
thinking about international market
should think about collaboration.
23/4/2010
2010 Entrepreneurs Show
SMEs, Public sector,
Business support
250
Dublin, Ireland
Circulated C2C brochures and web link
at this entrepreneur exhibition
agencies, chamber of
commerce’s
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Date
20/05/2010
Type of Activity
Presentation Briefing,
Target Market
Industry networks
Size of
Country
Audience
Targeted
50
Ireland
Skillnet project managers
Short Description
Presentation on the C2C project to
sectoral and geographic enterprise
training clusters
15/06/10-
2010 EBN International
BIC Owners and
16/06/10
Conference
500+
Held in Spain –
The C2C team lead the official
Managers/ SME Owners
attendance from all
transnational launch at the EBN
and Managers
over the EU
conference in Burgos Spain. This event
was chosen because of its high profile
and consistently good attendance
across all EU states. The key findings
of the C2C project were presented
and Momentum communicated the
success of the viral marketing efforts.
15/06/10 -
THRIC – Tourism
Tourism & Hospitality
16/06/10
Hospitality Research in
owners and managers
Ireland Conference
300+
Shannon Ireland
Momentum submitted a paper related
to the theme of marketing
collaboration for SMEs by focusing on
a niche food specialty group of artisan
butchers. The paper highlighted how
this SME group can collaborate
together in their marketing activities
to create a niche food tourism product
offering for high quality artisan meat
in Ireland’s South West. C2C was
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Date
Type of Activity
Target Market
Size of
Country
Audience
Targeted
Short Description
highlighted as a key part of the well
received presentation.
18/8/10
19/8/10
Presentation Briefing, CEB
Micro enterprise
project managers
business advisors
Presentation Briefing, Food
Food sector business
Hubs
advisors
15
Ireland
Presentation on the C2C project to
micro enterprise business advisors
25
Ireland
Presentation on the C2C project to
food sector business advisors &
collaboration hubs
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6. Social Media Marketing Campaign
C2C was really a test bed for communicating the role that social media marketing
can now play in all future Leonardo projects.
Social Media platforms used in the dissemination strategy included

Facebook

Twitter

YouTube

Linkedin
The role of social media in the C2C marketing campaign was significant as it
provided the following key benefits:
Why Social Media Marketing for C2C
Helped to raise the profile of C2C in the international and
global marketplace
Helped to build brand identity and awareness of C2C across
key target segments
Was a great low cost way to support the in person sales effort
at various events
Helped support implementation of a consistent brand message
that successfully transcended EU country borders
Great promotional tool – Ideal online medium for
dissemination of the C2C message instantaneously
Opened up opportunities to generate new leads & enquiries
for the project
Significantly reduced the financial cost of marketing the
project
Improved the search rankings of the project in Google thereby
driving increased visitor traffic to the C2C Website
Continues to support the website by helping identify and build
new collaborative partnership opportunities across the SME
community
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1. C2C Facebook Campaign
I.
C2C Facebook Page www.facebook.com/collaborate2compete
This page provides the focal point for buidling an on line community for the
purpose of disseminating word about the project to a global audience. The page
was created on April 24th 2009 and since then page has attracte d interest from a
niche but highly relevant audience compriseing 227 fans. This is an ongoing
initiative as new fans register on the page on a weekly basis. The main
contibutions that the C2C Facebook page has brought to the project include:
A. Provided an on line platform to post information and news updates on the
project
B. Provided an interactive platform for fans and subscribers to comment on
project content, post photos and interact with other fans
C. Increased visitor traffic to the C2C webpage
D. Created a forum for uploading relevant photos and key project milestone
updates
E. Supported the overall SEO strategy for Google – since the Facebook C2C
username www.facebook.com/collaborate2compete ensures that the page
is optimised for Google Searches and other relvant search engines
II.
C2C online Facebook Advertising Campaign
In order to maximise the launch of the C2C website at Burgos in Spain in June
2010, an online Facebook Advertising Campaign was developed. The purpose
of this campaign was to increase the C2C fan base and to create more buzz
around the event stand during the 3 day event.
The advert ran for 3 weeks and was one of the main drivers in increasing
traffic to the C2C website. As can be seen from the screenshot taken from the
Advert Manager statistics in Facebook, the ad generated

3,213,058 Impressions i.e. the number of time the ad was displayed

741 Clicks – the number of clicks the ad received

CTR (Click through ratio) of 0.023% - note this is well within the
guidelines of the SME industry average of .02%

Conversion rate of 13.5% i.e. Number of likes achieved during the
campaign/total number of clicks x 100 which was 100/741x 100
Between 30/06/10- 20/07/10
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Based on the above statistics, this advert campaign was very successful and
really contributed to the buzz and activity at the stand during the 3 day website
launch in Spain
2. C2C Embedded Video Viral Campaign
The use of interactive video at the C2C launch in Burgos proved most effective.
Once the website pilot phase was ready to go 4 weeks in advance of the launch,
Momentum Marketing worked with a small number of SMEs to get their feedback
on the module content and the ease of navigational ability of the site. Rather than
securing their feedback in writing, both SMEs agreed to provide their feedback
through interactive video. These videos were recorded live and then Momentum
created a C2C YouTube channel to host the videos.
At the time of launching the website in Burgos Spain, these videos proved to be
very effective among attendees as they could witness firsthand the relevance of
the module content created on the C2C website.
The two SME participants including
1. Ms. Fiona Egan of Office Training Solutions – Fiona is a financial business
advisor and she shared her comments and feedback on the module
content in particular referencing Guide to Negotiating Collaboration’
as one of the modules that was most helpful and relevant to her
business. This module empowers SME owners and managers with
the techniques required to effectively engage in a collaboration
negotiation including how to handle areas of disagreement
positively without losing confidence and recognising how and
when to close the deal
This video can be viewed on Youtube by clicking on the following link
http://www.youtube.com/user/38Magpie?feature=mhum#p/a/u/1/atEUJKins5U
2. Ms, Orla Leydon from Shannon Marine & Leisure Ltd, also provided
feedback on the module content of C2C in particular she spoke about how
helpful the e-learning module: ‘The Different areas where SMEs
Collaborate’ was for her in her business as a professional trainer.
Among other things the module gives tips and guidance on how to
conduct a training needs analysis and helpful tops on choosing the
right type of training to suit an organisation’s requirements. This
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step by step approach highlights all the areas that need to be
looked at with respect to conducting a basic needs assessment of
the business, to examining the positive role that training plays in
retaining employees.
This video is also available for viewing on YouTube by clicking on the following
link
http://www.youtube.com/user/38Magpie?feature=mhum#p/a/u/0/qnnEDI1KHoo
3. Linkedin Discussion Groups
Another key social media marketing tool that was used in the launch was
Linkedin. A C2C group was set up midway through the project to provide an
online forum which was used to facilitate discussions across a global audience on
the topic of effective SME collaboration.
Although the linked in member group was quite small, this social media platform
did provide the perfect online forum for engaging in collaboration discussions.
Examples of popular discussions included

How to make collaboration actions more attractive to SMEs

Contribution for EU research on knowledge and Technology transfer
through Public-Private Partnerships for SMEs

Collaboration in Ireland among specialty Food Producers - which resulted
in a written paper presented at the THRIC conference in Shannon in 2010
on how a niche segment of food producers in the form or artisan butchers
can collaborate in their marketing efforts to create a niche food tourism
product offering in Ireland’s South West
7. Key Takeaways from the C2C dissemination strategy
The main takeaways from the C2C dissemination strategy that can provide
learning’s for future Leonardo projects include:

In person direct sales at networking and business events proved to the
most effective offline communication channel across each of the project
countries because the project partners were able to interface directly with
key target audiences
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
Social Media Marketing is a key online marketing communication channel
for creating brand identity and awareness of a project to an international
audience

Interactive video should have been used more in the C2C project as a
primary communication tool and Linked in could have been leveraged
more as an line discussion forum among key SME target audiences

Despite the online efforts – having a compelling piece of promotional
material is critical for a project of this magnitude as SME business owners
and managers still request a piece of ‘physical’ hard copy marketing
collateral despite their comfort with technology and online mediums
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