Tees Business | Page 5

Serving the Teesside Business Community | 5 /NEWS / ADVICE Calm recruits - David Dunn, Julie France, Robert Page, Mehmoona Ameen, David Balmbra, Stephen Brown. MAKE YOUR BUSINESS A SCREEN STAR Marketing via a short video is a great way to raise the profile of your business and to promote services or products. But many businesses struggle to decide what type of video they need. Calm keep busy as staff team grows Middlesbrough-based Calm Digital has added six new people to its team as it experiences increasing demand for its services. J ulie France and David Dunn have joined to help drive growth as business development managers of the creative digital agency. Stephen Brown from Hartlepool and David Balmbra from Middlesbrough have joined as developers while quirky street artist Robert Page will add his unique style to the team as a part-time designer. The new project manager Mehmoona Ameen was trained at Sandhurst, so she will make sure all projects are now handled with military precision. Julie, of Saltburn, has almost 15 years of experience, including 10 years at BT. She will be responsible for growing the leisure sector, which currently includes clients Swinton Park, Acklam Hall and Redcar Racecourse. “I’m proud to be part of this supportive team, but I’m mostly proud of the excellent products and services that we deliver to our clients,” said Julie. T “I’m also really excited about Teesside – it’s a hive of activity with lots of regeneration and growth going on at the moment.” Dedicated David Dunn commutes from Northumberland to work at Calm. The parttime DJ and former teacher is responsible for growing Calm’s specialist sectors of engineering and oil and gas. He said: “I absolutely love it here – it’s the best job I’ve ever had. The agency has such a nice family feel, it’s totally worth the 200 mile round commute!” Calm Digital also specialises in the property sector as well as professional services, recently signing solicitors Latimer Hinks. Calm director Bianca Robinson said: “We’re excited about the positive direction Calm is moving in. “Everyone is extremely motivated and we feel it’s the strongest the team has ever been - we are assembling our dream team!” IoD enhances support for young directors he Institute of Directors (IoD) has expanded its successful Young Directors Forum to help aspiring entrepreneurs in the North East realise their potential. The forum, part of the IoD’s commitment to embrace tomorrow’s leaders today, represents the interests of members who are aged under 42, students, apprentices or members of its 99 Club for young entrepreneurs. The Young Directors Forum previously focused exclusively on Yorkshire, but has now been expanded to cover the North East. This means that hundreds more young business people will benefit from high quality professional development and networking while contributing to the IoD’s powerful voice in regional and national policy discussions. The IoD has about 2,000 members in Yorkshire and 500 in the North East. Below are three easy steps to ensure a video blows your customers away! 1. Lead the viewer – In order to best lead, you first need to know where you are going. Consider what the goals are for your content. Do you want to raise awareness of a project or brand? Educate people about new techniques? Show market-beating low costs? Once you know what you’re trying to achieve, you can better prepare and plan the content. 2. Innovate around contributors – Consider the values and methods that separate your company and make it unique in the market place. This can be included via contributors in the film, through short, snappy sound bites. Around this, you can tell the story of the company through visuals. This is where you can get really creative and explore the work place. Even the most mundane businesses have a particular rhythm and interesting work flow. If you can show this through visuals your viewer will understand so much more about your business and what it can offer. 3. Attention to detail – Throughout the entire process, from conception to release, the details of your video are essential. This will streamline the planning phase and also ensure you have the highest quality product at the end. Anything that you put out there is a direct reflection on your business so there can be no short cuts! Video killed the radio star – or so the song went – but it can give your business marketing a huge boost. So take time to think what you want from it and consult a professional video maker. Thanks for reading. Daniel Smith 90SecondStory Email: [email protected]