Town has boosted our success, say designers (From Basingstoke Gazette)

Town has boosted our success, say designers

8:56am Friday 5th June 2009 in

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A DESIGN company that made the decision to focus its business on Basingstoke has reported its best profits to date – with turnover hitting £1.275million.

Managing director Craig Killick, who set up The Escape design and marketing agency 12 years ago with account director Rob Jones, puts the success down to the abundance of business opportunities available to the team in the borough over the past 18 months.

Craig, who is based at the firm’s offices at Loddon Business Centre, in Roentgen Road, said: “In October 2007, we made a conscious effort to start marketing more heavily in Basingstoke, by raising our profile locally.

“And where previously we took whatever business came along, we are now actively going for Basingstoke – and a lot of that business is based on our web- design work.

“When we first started 12 years ago, we didn’t have one client in Basingstoke, but now I’d say more than 50 per cent of our clients are in Basingstoke.

“It’s also cheaper to manage projects locally and a lot of our supply network is in Basingstoke. Theoretically, you could run a business here without having to go outside of Basingstoke, because it’s got such a good business community.”

Promoting the firm’s local presence has certainly paid off according to Rob, who said: “Our net profits are up 14 per cent this year and up 68 per cent since 2006/2007.”

He added that another key factor was working smarter and more efficiently, while keeping costs down.

Rob said: “The majority of the work that we get now is kept in-house and is not out-sourced, and that’s partly why our profits have gone up so dramatically.”

Basingstoke’s positive business environment has also been an important factor – and Rob praised the borough council for its proactive role.

“Compared to other local authorities, who can be backward in coming forward, Basingstoke really does have its act together,” said Rob.

Now the borough council is one of the design agency’s clients, fitting well with Craig’s desire to be more involved with the local community.

The Escape has designed websites for St Michael’s Hospice, Sentinel Housing, as well as being a sponsor of the town’s key music event, Basingstoke Live, which takes place in War Memorial Park on July 11 and 12.

The agency will also be involved with this year’s INSPIRE09 business awards, which are set to be launched at The Anvil on Monday, June 15 – providing the event website that will soon go online.

The firm has also played its part in promoting the town and borough as it was responsible for revamping the website for the not-for-profit marketing agency Destination Basingstoke.

Craig said: “My involvement with that led me to joining the board of Destination Basingstoke because, as a local company, we saw as a business that there was an opportunity for us to put something back into the community.”

The agency is keen to expand its work with Hampshire County Council and has been involved with various initiatives, including the Choose 30 and the 20 is Plenty road safety campaigns.

With Craig and Rob both looking at two or three business proposals a week, the firm is certainly expanding.

It has recently opened an office in Andover and taken on a new technical director, Jason Kneen, to drive growth in online development teams and services.

“We haven’t been affected by the downturn, because we prepared for it,” explained Craig. “The marketing that we deliver works for our clients, so we are putting our money where our mouth is with our own marketing “We’ve changed our sales model slightly for some people and rather than asking for all the money up front, we will spread it over 12 months.

“That’s good for our cash flow and it’s good for theirs – and they should see after three or four months that their campaign should have paid for itself.”