Here at Bonfire we are committed to sharing our knowledge and expertise with the local community. We will be opening our doors to hold a series of workshops for local small businesses to share our knowledge of the tactics used by big businesses in the areas of traditional and digital marketing. We are pleased to say that our workshops will be completely free but places are strictly limited to just 20 people on a first-come-first-served basis.

We are starting off by tackling social media; dispelling the myths and deciphering what it can and cannot do for your business.

Workshop 1 – I have social media and I’m going to use it!
This is aimed at people who have started using various accounts but do not really know how to use them for business. Social media can complement what your business already does, so long as you know how to use it and create a balance between the channels you use. This workshop will help you to use social media the best way for your business and is assuming a general understanding of how to use social media channels (post, like, share etc).

Workshop 2 – I’ve got loads of likes/followers but no extra business. Why?
The aim of this workshop is to empower you with tips on how to plan, measure and track what you do. This will help you to understand what your social media activity is achieving and what this means to your business. This workshop will help you to plan and deliver relevant activity and to place it in the context of your competitors. We will also cover how to experiment with social advertising without breaking the bank and use case studies from bigger businesses to show how it should be done.

We expect these workshops to take place early in the New Year but exact dates and venue to be confirmed. If you are interested in attending please send an email with your name, contact details, workshop choice and an outline of what your business does to lorraine@bonfireci.com

There will be additional workshops on various marketing-related subjects throughout 2013.

Bonfire’s very own Movember ambassador and all round Mo enthusiast Sacha Harding has beaten off stiff opposition to be crowned the winner of Contagious Magazine’s creative competition. The challenge was to design a billboard to broadcast the message of Movember to the masses. The winning design has graced Clear Channel’s giant illuminated hoarding in the middle of Hammersmith, London. Sacha’s cheeky “I’m sexy and I Mo it” design took the competition by storm with its striking simplicity.

Read all about Sacha’s win here: http://www.contagiousmagazine.com/2012/11/movember_1.php

According to the British Retail Consortium one in nine shops on the British high street is now vacant. In a bid to breathe life back into the high street so called pop-up shops are springing up across the country; everyone from big-name international brands to tiny fledgling businesses are trying out this new way to trade. Pop ups provide a relatively cheap and risk free way of experimenting with a new product or location and learning more about potential customers.

In his new book “Pop Up Business For Dummies” Dan Thompson offers advice and tips on finding the perfect location for your pop-up shop, strategies for negotiating the best possible terms with a landlord, affordable ways to make your pop up shop look inviting to customers and case studies from successful pop up ventures.

Dan Thompson is the founder of the Empty Shops Network; a passionate campaigner for the problems facing town centres and communities as a result of shop closure. One example Dan cites in his book of a town addressing the issues of a waning high street is Bedford and the resulting We Are Bedford campaign. The project was started by Kayte Judge (Steve’s wife!) and was supported by the RSA (Royal Society for the Arts). We Are Bedford injected life into an area of unoccupied shop units via a series of pop up projects.

We designed the We Are Bedford branding, an element Dan Thompson believes to be essential to the success of any pop up business: “a strong brand was a vital ingredient in building recognition and keeping an audience engaged.” In “Pop Up Business for Dummies” Bonfire is credited for the strength of the branding which was flexible and adaptable, distinctive and eye-catching. The logo used a cut-out font that was applied to window vinyls, laser-cut signs and a rubber stamp for tags and paper bags. Applied consistently across the varying projects the branding was instrumental in building a strong following for We Are Bedford.

Pop up Business for Dummies is available to buy now on Amazon.