Last year we were proud to take so many of our clients’ businesses to whole new heights.  Some of the stories that stand out are:

Who Ate All the Pies?

For this innovative specialist pie business in Dunedin, we developed a great brand identity and enabled them to get much more brand exposure through an updated website and an active social media presence.

This exposure was great but the biggest benefits were brought about by suggesting some key structural changes and realignment of responsibilities inside the business.  By putting these in place, the business managed to increase sales in the closing months of 2011 by 26% over those of the same period in the previous year.

We look forward to seeing what further increases will be achieved when the new packaging we designed for the pies hits the supermarket shelves in the coming months.

Stirling Sports Online

The innovative Stirling Sports On-line is another great success story.  After we project managed a major redesign and upgrade to their e-commerce website and get their social media channels up, running and fully integrated to the website, they doubled their website traffic and had their best December sales ever by a significant margin on all previous years.

These are just two of the highlights for last year.  We will be adding more of our success stories to our website as we go through the year.

If you would like to find out what we can do for you, then please do not hesitate to contact us.

Have a great New Year.

Our team has a whole range of experience and skills, practised around the world,  that can help businesses excel in all of growth stages and in all areas of operations.

We can help in every area of your business from:

• Refining your Identity
• Defining and growing your Brand
• Gaining and growing a strong online presence
• Marketing yourself effectively
• Utilising Social Media and Social Commerce
• Profiling and structuring your team
• Refining your processes
• Structuring your business for success

Kiwi Dreams was born out of the dreams of founders John  Owens and Pam Walton, both of whom have acted as consultants in and owned businesses on both sides of the globe.  They know through their own successes and failures, triumphs and tragedies, the special challenges

Steven Turner, owner of Dunedin’s gourmet pie company, Who Ate All The Pies? has had his dreams come true. No he hasn’t won the lottery, he’s had a lifetime ambition to be featured in his favourite bedtime read – Viz Comic Magazine, come to reality.

Following a farfetched conversation between Steve and his marketing advisors, local company, Kiwi Dreams, a tweet was sent to Viz who were very interested in the idea of a pie swap for visiting English rugby supporters to Dunedin. With a follow up email, a very special deal for the travelling rugby supporters was set.

The popular spoof filled British comic magazine have published Steven’s offer of ‘free pies’ for all their readers! Readers can take a copy of Viz along to Steve’s pie stand in the Octagon on England game days and swap it for a Who Ate All The Pies?, pie! Worried that many readers won’t want to give up their favourite magazine, Steve took it even further offering a 20% discount to anyone willing to sing ‘Who Ate All The Pies’ in their best Northern English accent; saying that he hopes it will help to add atmosphere in the city’s centre.

Steve can’t wait to see how many comics he’ll be able to add to his collection later in the month, but is perhaps more looking forward to the arrival of his subscription of this month’s Viz comic, so he can take it to be framed, where it will take pride of place in his shop!

For further information or a photo opportunity please contact:

James Hacon, Executive Consultant – Kiwi Dreams james@kiwi-dreams.co.nz 0211 548 546

Francis Kulaga, Associate Consultant – Kiwi Dreams francis@kiwi-dreams.co.nz 021 028 51412

- Conceptualisation and brand development of a cooperative marketing group, named Taste Dunedin. Allowing the 10+ small to medium sized businesses involved to undertake marketing activities that they may not have been able to undertake independently.

- Online development management of the Wine Tours Otago website, the previous name of the business before a re-brand.

- Creative services, marketing and business development advice.

- Recommending and connecting the business with service providers & key partners.

Our support of the development of this new site has resulted in the following features;

-          Clear brand identity for Stirling Sports Online with a distinct design built around the national brand logo.

-          The development of clear brand guidelines for external brand supplied slider images, to ensure a powerful home page.

-          Conceptualisation and design of a Stirling Sports character, as a distinct way of adding attitude to the brand. This will be released across the online store and throughout franchises late 2011.

-          Integration of Facebook Connect elements, allowing customers to sign-in and sign-up via Facebook as well as liking and sharing products throughout the store.

-          Inclusion of foreign currency acceptance and overseas shipping, to encourage more sales from the significant traffic originating in the USA, Australia and South America.

Re-launching the site has resulted in a 30% increase in traffic within two months.

We are currently supporting the online management team in the following ways;

-          In recruiting the right skills into the organisation

-          In the development of a clear online marketing strategy, including social commerce, direct marketing and on-site calls to action.

-          Better marketing the site through search engines.

-       Entertainment Publications| Sydney, Australia

-       The Restaurant & Bar Show | Auckland, New Zealand

-       The Travel Brokers – Stella Travel Group | New Zealand

-       International Institute of Business Analysis |Tehran, Iran

-       Tourism Dunedin | Dunedin, New Zealand

-       Otago Chamber of Commerce | Dunedin, New Zealand

-       Dunedin Host Tourism Association | Dunedin , New Zealand

-       St Clair Beach Resort| Dunedin, New Zealand

-       Tourism Industry Blog | New Zealand

-       Otago Polytechnic | Dunedin, New Zealand

-       Department of Internal Affairs | Wellington, New Zealand

-       Bank of New Zealand | Dunedin, New Zealand

-       Data Quality Pro | London, UK

Subjects of our recent webinars, workshops & presentations include; 

Turning Social Media into Social Commerce

Effective Marketing through Facebook

Embracing the power of Linkedin

Building a Brand for Restaurants & Bars

Social Media Marketing for Tourism Businesses

Social Media Marketing for Small Businesses

An introduction to SEO

Understanding Property Management Systems

Getting to grips with Review Sites

Creative Content for Social Media

The basics of Search Engine Marketing

Structuring your business for success

Managing data quality

We started the process by getting back to basics. Within two sessions, aimed at defining the core values and position of the brand, we were able build a clear brand guide that aimed to be useful across the business, not just within marketing.

Once the graphic design elements of the brand were completed, we worked with the Graphic Designer to develop signage, packaging, labelling, point of sales merchandise and clothing to ensure brand viability and recognition between outlets – something that had always been missing until now. You may well have spotted the distinctive design work at one of his outlets or the Otago Farmers Market in the past few weeks.

Alongside this development, we have also been delighted to have secured Steven a slot in his favourite Comic Magazine, VIZ, with a feature around the world cup. Just the prompt Steven needed to get us developing an operational marketing plan for the remainder of 2011 and 2012! For now, follow Who Ate All The Pies on Twitter or ‘Like’ them on Facebook, whilst you watch this space for more creative concepts to come!

Until now, the Dunedin Chinese Garden has never had its own website, instead being included on the central website of the Dunedin City Council. Following our and others advice, the Dunedin City Council saw the importance of an independent website for the garden.

Kiwi Dreams was contracted to provide guidance to the Chinese Garden management around their digital marketing activity. Our suggestions were centred on using a mixture of traditional and social orientated methods to provide up-to-date, relevant and exciting content that will represent the vibrancy of the Garden as a tourist attraction, community facility, event centre and a culturally significant space.

We worked alongside members of the Dunedin City Council team to highlight and advise around the following areas of development, with the website and delivery being undertaken by the Dunedin City Council;

Website

-       To detail the likely uses and subsequent users of the website and its purpose.

-       Create a site map highlighting page names, sections, subsections and relevant content themes for each page, as well as the key information required on the website.

-       Investigating suitable content delivery mechanisms

-       Ensuring the desired page journey for various users is established and on-page marketing is maximised.

Social Media

-       Selection of social media sites to be used.

-       Creative concepts, team training and operational guidelines.

-       Suggestions encouraging users to associate and engage through social media.

Wider Online Presence

-       To highlight sites utilised to review or mentioning the Chinese Garden online, then setting up accounts to monitoring their use and ensure accuracy in listings.

-       Investigate opportunities to create incoming links to the website and establish the likely funnelling of interested users and potential customers.

-       Help highlight a strategy around search engine optimisation.

Other associated areas

-       Online distribution/Wholesale distribution concept

-       Website based ticket sales and retail ecommerce functions

-       Trade/Agent Section of website

We provide a monthly consultancy package to the company, mostly used by Andrew Whiley for external opinions and expertise advice on his company’s online activities. Ways we have supported Whiley Golf so far have been;

-       Providing advice around personal online branding to Andrew Whiley.

-       Highlighting opportunities for online marketing of Andrew Whiley and his associated brands through social media, golf related websites and print publications also.

-       Project management, conceptual design and quality auditing of the New Zealand Golf Rankings website development project.

-       Recommending and quality referencing online service suppliers.

-       Connecting the company with potential brand partners and investors.

We will be supporting Whiley Golf with the choice and development of a new golf related system, currently being undertaken as a joint venture with a tourism related company in New Zealand.

Our work with Wanaka Lakehouse addressed this broad range of business areas;

-       Advising on and assisting in the selection of a booking engine, channel manager and third party sales sites.

-       Writing effective sales script for online accommodation booking and listing websites.

-       Conceptualisation of accommodation and activity packages, corporate retreats and themed events.

-       Building social media followers and encouragement of sharing content.

-       Implementing direct email marketing and follow up emails to encourage TripAdvisor reviews, resulting in the property maintaining #1 position for our six month programme.

-       Defining clear responsibilities and structure within the operation.

-       Recommendation of online service providers and photographers.