We are an award-winning communications agency that aspires to GoBeyond and create a new experience for our clients. Derived from the Latin root amplius, meaning to go further, we aim to exceed our clients’ expectations.
With headquarters in Washington, D.C., Amsterdam and London, our team is composed of experts who can execute campaigns anywhere our clients have a need.
Amplia Group was engaged by the Dorking Town Partnership Business Improvement District (BID) to help ‘Save the Highstreet’ - develop and implement an integrated social media strategy and a redesigned responsive website to:
1. Raise awareness of the tourism and shopping offering in Dorking with target audiences;
2. Help increase the footfall and revenue for Dorking businesses;
3. Increase event attendance; and
4. Gain buy in and support from key business leaders and community partners.
Develop and implement an integrated branding and marketing strategy to engage the BID’s stakeholder audience, increase awareness of the Dorking brand, and build brand ambassadors (businesses, customers, tourists, influencers, bloggers, media, and shoppers) using digital and earned media.
Our tactics included developing promotional films, social media campaigns, Instameets with influencers, and supporting place management activities. We rebranded one existing and launched new digital channels to ‘@HelloDorking’ and launched a customer-generated content strategy to engage the audience in a meaningful way and to create genuine content.
We utilised existing market research conducted by the BID and conducted A/B testing with our messages for the first few months of our engagement to ensure we got our messaging right. We also provided strategic communications advisory services on a daily basis (integrated branding, marketing, PR, and social media training to Dorking businesses and community partners):
1. Collaborate with BID Manager, business community, community partners and stakeholders to build and sustain the Hello Dorking brand;
2. Serve as a BID brand ambassador, community manager and liaison from a digital perspective. Develop messaging, conduct digital training, and serve as a personable trouble shooter on behalf of the BID;
3. Leverage network to create proactive, positive PR opportunities for the BID (events, tourism, shop local).
4. Produce films, marketing materials, and all assets (photography, hand-painted illustrations, digital, copywriting, and videos) for all collateral across channels.
We developed and executed a comprehensive digital campaign to engage, inspire and create brand champions for the Dorking high street. Our programme consisted of engaging our target audience across digital, offline and traditional editorial channels (social media, website, blog, print, place management, cinema, and email).
Follower engagement and sentiment; follower count for all social media profiles; impressions, mentions; and reach for social media posts.
Website traffic and social media referral traffic; bounce rate; and clicks on social media posts.
Influencers both discussing and generating content; also the number of people reaching out to ask about the BID or campaigns.
Event attendance, increases in event attendance.
Increase in footfall.
Earned media coverage.
Feedback generated from campaigns.
When our client launched their Business Improvement District (BID) in 2017, much like other high street communities across the UK, businesses felt disenchanted due to retail challenges. In order for us to bring tourists and residents (back) to the highstreet, we knew we would have to build Brand Ambassadors out of the businesses.
Our client regularly commented on their desire for the broader community to “fall back in love with Dorking’. We knew that in order to reach our local, regional, national and even international audience, we would have to first focus on the people of Dorking and make them our brand champions.
We segmented our audience into Dorking businesses and their customers. We focused our messaging and our outreach strategy so that both groups would take ownership of the Hello Dorking brand and therefore promote it for us and be our content creators, our collaborators, and our partners.
Dorking was named the Britain’s 4th best highstreet by the Telegraph eight months into our engagement. We also experienced a surge in customer-generated content and an increased interest in customers publishing content to our #hellodorking hashtags across all channels. This was a success for us as we were looking to create brand champions from our audience.
Our success is reflected in increased footfall at BID-sponsored events and on the high street, positive social media sentiment and engagement every month, and increased exposure in national and regional media.
The BID installed footfall counters to provide accurate details about Dorking footfall. From August to December 2018, we found that footfall increased every month leading up to our the very successful Christmas Festival. The only month that experienced a decrease in footfall was February (it was a rainy, bitterly cold month). We started our engagement on the 27th August and launched our channels ‘officially’ on 1 September.
The BID also held a unique motorsport event where we helped to generate national coverage and a Christmas Festival and Window Competition judged by Mole Valley’s MP (we invited the MP and we suggested and coordinated the window competition) culminating in Small Business Saturday. The Christmas Festival and Rob Walker Motorsport event generated over 8,000 attendees each. Amplia Group was directly credited by the BID manager, the BID Board and the public for generating social media interest and earned media coverage for these events.
The BID also launched a monthly Artisanal Market. Amplia Group developed and executed the digital launch strategy for these events and was credited for increased event attendance for each of these events by the BID manager and BID Board due to increased promotion across all channels.
According to the Dorking Museum, our social media activity generated increases in their events and activities:
“Your posts made a very great difference to the numbers turning out for the Museum walks and events as they were reaching a much bigger audience. I don’t know if you were aware of that, but it is good to know.” – Dorking Museum Curator
Social media followers increased incrementally every month and social media engagement and reach was consistently positive (the BID did not invest in ad buys on social – this was all organic growth). We only boosted posts on a campaign basis (i.e., we boosted video posts).
In addition to measuring statistics across Twitter, Instagram and Facebook, we evaluated our success by the direct positive feedback received on social media from our audience:
“Hi Kathy, great to hear from you! I absolutely love the Hello Dorking pages, they are brilliant.
I’m hoping to do something similar to you - almost at the end of 6 months’ training as a social media manager with a company called Digital Mums so the Local To Ashtead page is my ‘shop window’.
Your page has been a real inspiration to me and I’d love to do something similar for Epsom BID!
Keep up the Amazing Work!” - Local to Ashtead
”All these photos!! Oh wow!! They SOOOO remind me of how beautifully quirky our town is . Really should get out and walk more! Thank you Xx”
“I don’t think I spoke to one single person who not only did not know about the market but was super-excited about going today. You did our gorgeous town proud once again."
We also generated positive earned media coverage via our BID Board outreach, businesses PR efforts, social media and direct email pitching in The Telegraph, The Times, Timeout London, The Telegraph with Steve Drake, and the London Standard.
Our efforts have led to economic investment in the town (at least 10 new businesses opened since we were engaged on the project).
We provided social media training for Dorking businesses and community partners who amplified our message and who also built their own channels upon which to grow their own following. This amplified our messaging and aligned to our brand ambassador programme approach.
We sent Mailchimps to the entire BID Levy payer listserv and also promoted on social media, inviting anyone who wanted to attend. We provided training to over 50 individuals. We also measured positive sentiment from our social media training attendees via anonymous surveys:
“Thanks for a brilliant, really useful session. So glad I made use of social media and tweeted! I would love to come to the follow-on sessions you are planning.”
Many thanks to @IamKathyKyle @HelloDorking for an excellent workshop on #SocialMedia at @WhiteHorseDorks #Dorking today 😊
"Kathy is magic ... what a find! Great session ... thank you so much!". . . Keep up the Amazing Work!”
"Kathy was engaging and very knowledgeable. The course was full of information but presented in a very understanding and simple way. She didn't mind answering our questions along the way and offered lots of advice too. I can't wait until the next course in May!”
"A great course very well organised and not too many participants which enabled everyone's questions to be answered Thank you!”
"Well presented, great content and an opportunity to share and discuss with other business owners in the Town. A great use of the BID money!”
"Thank you for arranging the workshop!"
Our video/cinema approach was also successful both quantitatively and qualitatively. We coordinated with Dorking Halls (the local cinema) and local Surrey hotels to show our videos on screen, on websites, across social media, and in hotel rooms. We launched the videos, teasers and trailers via a launch campaign across all digital platforms and on our website and used ad buys to boost posts. From January 2019, we reached 60,000 viewers with over 12,000 engagements, driving more visitors to town. We created three additional videos to inspire tourists to visit Dorking: Shop Local, Tourism, and a ‘Mayflower’ film for our American market. View all of our promotional films.
From July 2019 to August 2019, the Shop Local film received over 45,000 views and the Tourism film received over 40,000 views.
Amplia Group and our film partner, Objekt Films were shortlisted for a Campaign Live Digital Cinema Media ‘Marketing for Good Award’ in 2019; other nominees included British Gas/MediaComUK, LIDL, John Lewis, CoOp, Grey Goose, Counterterrorism Policing.
Visit Surrey’s Chief Executive asked Amplia Group to present the Hello Dorking as a case study at its Annual Meeting to its members.
We created a community of town Ambassadors who generated genuine shareable content and served as our brand champions. We created an authentic, seamless customer experience both online and offline. We created a bespoke website and digital strategy for the business community. We created hand-painted illustrations and photography, produced high-quality promotional films, social media videos, and supported place management activities.
We succeeded in our goals because we routinely conducted media monitoring, message testing, and outreach to build the Hello Dorking community, generate content, and raise the profile of this brilliant town. We far surpassed our goals of raising awareness, increasing footfall, event attendance, and generating support.
We created a proud and sustainable @HelloDorking community.
Learn more about Dorking and be sure to visit and shop local!
