DIGITAL MARKETING
Council focuses on Digital
With 205,000 residents and almost 8,000 businesses, Armagh City, Banbridge and Craigavon Borough Council boasts a total workforce of 123,000 and is home to some of Northern Ireland’ s largest businesses including Almac, Moy Park, Tayto, Thompson Aero Seating and Fane Valley.
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entrally and ideally located, the Council’ s number one priority is to proactively build the economic prosperity of the area by supporting business development, business growth and entrepreneurship. Two years on the new borough is fast becoming the leading economic force in Northern Ireland.
A hub for the Life Sciences and Advanced Manufacturing sectors, it is also Northern Ireland’ s official, awardwinning Food Heartland, proudly hosting hundreds of organisations excelling in food production, sales and in tourism and hospitalityrelated fields.
Digital
Not content with this success Council is also focusing on the digital sector. There are 130 digital tech businesses located in the Borough, or eight per cent of digital tech businesses in Northern Ireland, making it one of the largest digital tech sector bases outside of Nortehrn Ireland’ s two main cities.
A recent scoping study commissioned by Armagh City, Banbridge and Craigavon
46 www. businessfirstonline. co. uk
Borough Council showed that there is a significant potential for this vibrant Digital Tech Sector to expand across the Borough. The sector has the potential to create new high value enterprises, grow existing businesses and promote high quality jobs, making a valuable contribution to the Borough and wider Northern Ireland economy.
Recognising“ Digital” opportunities, Council is adopting a strategic role in supporting and nurturing this exciting potential for growth.
It has introduced a suite of DigiTech programmes aimed at both traditional and digitaltech businesses and the emerging workforce. These programmes are providing opportunities for digital startups, digital innovators, existing digitech businesses, and traditional nondigital businesses.
Ninety Businesses Benefit through Connect & # optimise
Over 90 businesses across the Borough have benefited from tailored digital marketing and social media support over the past 15 months through both the Connect and # optimise programmes.
The two different programmes have helped businesses take advantage of the online opportunities available through strategic use of online advertising, web development, search engine optimisation, video marketing and social media.
Participating businesses report a tangible increase in sales with some companies starting to export to the USA and Asia for the first time based on Facebook Advertising campaigns.
Lisa King of King’ s Baby Shop clarifies,“ The optimise programme really helped to develop a digital marketing strategy to improve our online sales. Over the past year we have seen our sales increase and have now employed a full time digital marketing officer as a direct result."
Claire Meland of Rolltack also comments,“ The optimise programme helped us develop our Facebook advertising skills and strategy. Through targeting and retargeting different audiences we have managed to increase our sales and have sold to America and Australia