Features – Wear Business launched a successful series of Tees
Business Leaders webchats, some of which were sponsored by
FW Capital (left), as well as a new series of Wear Words website
articles featuring many local business leaders.
same boat.
One editor of a string of free newspapers
in the North-East revealed: “Advertising
dropped by 90 per cent for us the week
lockdown was announced. It literally fell off
a cliff.”
In our region’s great paid-for newspaper
titles, staff were furloughed, several have
now lost their jobs altogether and at the end
of online articles, appeals appeared from
editors routinely asking for the public’s
support.
In some parts of the country, longestablished
papers printed for the last time,
others that were suspended are unlikely to
return.
As the most newly-launched publishing
product in the North-East, Wear Business has
had no time to build a loyal audience.
So, as a management team, we discussed
the idea of mothballing the magazine
until some sort of semblance of normality
returned – maybe the end of 2020 or the
start of 2021. We could pause all work on
the title.
But the idea of shelving Wear Business
was, itself, quickly shelved.
As my co-editor Colin Young put it:
“We wouldn’t be much of a voice for Wear
Business if we opened and then immediately
closed.”
And his follow-up point also resonated:
“If we’re there for Wear businesses during all
this, they’ll hopefully remember that in years
to come. That will help them believe in us
and back what we’re trying to achieve.”
So over the past six months, we’ve been far
from idle.
There were three main things we focused
on:
• Improving the strength and depth of the
Wear Business website.
• Creating and developing a weekly
e-newsletter to be sent out every week
to 1,600-plus business subscribers.
• Producing Wear Business Leaders
online, a weekly Facebook interview
with leading experts on a chosen
topic, which was then put out not just
on social media but embedded in the
website and online.
Had we been going for any length of
time, we’d have been quickly saying “we
should have done this years ago,” but as
new-starters, we’re just grateful that we’ve
developed our online presence so early in
our journey because the responses have been
fantastic.
Through the website, we’ve supported
businesses along the Wear and built
relationships during the height of the
Covid-19 crisis.
Our e-newsletter, with a distribution list
growing by the week, has kept the business
community abreast of all the developments
and opportunities locally.
But perhaps the biggest impact has been
felt by the medium we were most uncertain
of when we started – the Wear Business
Leaders online forum.
The decision to choose a specific sector
and get experts in that sector to discuss it has
been a winner.
On average, Wear Business Leaders online
has attracted 8,000 viewers a week for a
subject which, even we have to admit, is
niche!
But it has given the opportunity, for
example, for those in the hotel trade to hear
the honest views of managers at Lumley
Castle and Ramside Hall.
Anyone struggling in the third sector,
could take heart from the experiences of
Grace House, If U Care Share and Durham
County Community Foundation.
And those businesses and self-employed
networkers wondering what the future of
networking would look like, could gain
insights from bosses at NetworkB2B, Fresh
Start Events and Sunderland BIC.
These are all new weapons in the Wear
Business armoury that we plan to maintain
and develop in the months and years ahead.
What we’ve discovered is that some
businesses are actually MORE interested
in Wear Business online than they are in
Wear Business magazine, and we've attracted
online sponsorship and advertising for the
first time.
Nevertheless, the print product is back,
and you can hold it in your hands while we
check with the Guinness Book of Records on
the longest gap between editions of quarterly
publications.
Our first edition was published in
December 2020 and this, our second edition,
has made it into your hands eight months
later!
That’s coronavirus for you.
But not even a pandemic has been able to
silence us.
Maybe when the question is put to Wear
Business in the future about what we did
during the pandemic, we’ll be able to answer,
not just “We survived,” but “We thrived.”
To finish on the same theme as this article
began, the Chinese prime minister Chou En
Lai was asked in 1972 what he thought the
effects of the French Revolution had been on
western civilization.
“It’s too early to tell,” was his famous
response.
The same might yet be said of the effects
on the business world of Covid-19.
It’s going to be a long haul with an
uncertain future for so many.
But Wear Business magazine is up for it.
Follow our latest news online
at wear.business
wear.business – the voice of business for the Wear region | 23