Prestige Floor Studio – Nick Gilbert on the Right, James Hancock on the left

Having established Prestige Floor Studio in 2009 on a budget that would barley cover a weekly shop, we knew we had to advertise and get our name about the cheapest possible way! Both Directors of Prestige Floor Studio were confident in their abilities, Nick Gilbert, having over 13 years of Sales experience (8 of those with Amtico Flooring, a leading Luxury Vinyl Tile manufacturer) and James Hancock, over 17 years of both installation and commercial management experience. We knew we had a good idea and we knew that we could create a fantastic retail environment for our potential customers.

We looked into the traditional areas of advertising and although good, it was obviously very difficult to gauge any kind of success from the advert unless we asked every person who came into the shop where they heard of us. This is fine in principle but when you are a new business you are that happy that someone has walked into the shop, the simplest questions sometimes can be forgotten!

We joined Twitter to see what it was all about, we already had a facebook page but realised we needed to do more. Very soon I was quite happily reading tweets from famous people all over the world, staring enviously at the private jet pictures from Rio Ferdinand and admiring the banter between Piers Morgan and whomever he decided to pick on that week. This was fun, but not really helping the business in anyway. I came across Alex’s blog and constant useful tweets regarding Altrincham and thought I should give him a call.

Through our first meeting it was explained to me that following Rio, Piers and other celebrities wasn’t really that useful to us as a company, so I took the brave measure of deleting all the famous people from my account and started to build it up again slowly. I learnt how to target specific areas that were related to what we did and I gradually increased my followers to people who could either potentially be customers or at least related to our market. Literally within the first week of the new campaign I came across a tweet for someone in Scotland wanting to purchase a specific type of flooring. I thought, “what the hell” and replied to his questions stating although not in scotland we could deliver and supply you with what ever he wanted. This lead to more tweets and e-mails and we eventually secured an order for around £5,000 for some high quality Ted Todd wood. We delivered this and it was installed at www.thewhitehouselodge.co.uk in scotland (pictures of our floor are in the gallery pages on their website).

A few months after we provided the wood, the White House Lodge contacted us again and bought a substantial amount of exterior slate also. These orders would never have been possible had it not been for twitter and we not even have had the opportunity to quote. In general Social Media has really helped our business and we enjoy tweeting about recent installations and news from around the local area. I recommend everyone should at least give it a go to see what results are possible and if you live in the local vicinity of Altrincham you won’t go wrong through speak with Alex at Altrincham HQ to ensure he sets you off on the right path.

(Have to admit I do follow Rio Ferdinand again though!)

For more information on how we can help your businesses social media presence contact us on alex@altrinchamhq.co.uk or call 07806 774279

And of course follow @prestigenick on twitter

Altrincham Hq

“With over 12 years experience of Social Media and 17 years experience of online marketing in other companies, clients come to myself when they want a veteran rather than a rookie” Alex McCann