Industry Sector
Service Required
Method Used
What They Needed
Devon Renaissance is a regeneration company serving the South West of England. A major part of its remit is to help local businesses identify how they can make use of public sector funding to improve their productivity and profitability.
What We Did
In 2005, Marketing Means ran a postal survey of 8,000 businesses in Devon, gaining 2,200 responses. The topics covered in the survey ranged from identifying skills gaps to partnership working. Marketing Means designed the survey form to be very straightforward for businesses to complete, visually appealing, and with clear instructions throughout, prefaced by an introduction by Devon Renaissance to explain the value of the survey and to motivate a reply. Our analysis of the data helped Devon Renaissance to demonstrate the real value of its work for local businesses.
In 2007, Marketing Means repeated the survey, this time including questions on financing options and the development of new ideas, products, and services, and collecting 1,350 responses from 5,800 businesses sampled.
In 2008, Marketing Means conducted the most recent wave of the survey, this time gathering 3,100 replies from a much larger sample of 23,000 businesses. The update allowed Devon Renaissance to gain a better understanding of the type of information gathered in the previous surveys, especially in regards to the changing markets that businesses faced.
Outcome
The information collected in the projects has helped Devon Renaissance to demonstrate the impact of its activity, and so to provide subsidised training places and business advice, to create job opportunities for over 300 people, and to support bids that brought over £10 million of additional funding into Devon.
