BLU – Event Management Contract (2005 – 2006)

The Brief
In March 2005 Dec Marketing were appointed to manage event management and marketing for a corporate university called BLU.

Funded by the DTI and Small Business Service, The Business Link University (BLU) helps people involved in business support make the UK the best place to start and grow a business. They provide high quality opportunities for learning, knowledge sharing and networking. Dec Marketing were called to

• Set up, promote and run an annual programme of seminars and workshops
• Set up and manage a learner database
• Provide marketing support for a range of learning resources and industry reports

The Challenges
The sheer quantity of learning events and training programmes was the main challenge.

• We delivered 63 learning events in 12 months
• Approximately 2000 delegates were processed

Achievements

• Grew the event portfolio from 25 events to 63 in just 12 months - a 152% increase in events held year on year. Introduced fee paying events when previously all BLU events were free
• Subsequently collected over £90K in delegate revenue for the client. 
• Created a new evaluation system
• Achieved average overall satisfaction rating for all BLU events managed by us was 97.66%.
• Built and successfully launched an integrated online event management system and web site.
• Since launch we averaged about 12,500 hits per week on the BLU events web site
• When visitors reach the BLU events website, 60% of them spend more than 30 minutes browsing.
• Researched and test marketed 8 brand new training programmes for the sector.
• Improved marketing response rates immeasurably
• An E-Zine newsletter was created and sent weekly to the learner database
• Reduced events and marketing running costs by one third.
• One example of visible efficiencies were that eventually 90% of all event registrations were dealt with electronically. 
• Just over half of all events were filled to capacity.

Conclusion
Working in close partnership with the BLU delivery team, civil servants and associates we contributed to tremendous organisational progress within BLU and developed a strong learning brand. This progress was recognised when BLU won the Top Team prize within the DTI.