Seeker News

We would love your support at this event, which promises to be a great opportunity for all involved, with an expected audience of well over 100 local business people.

Join us for a relaxed evening of networking with new contacts & old friends, exhibitors, speaker Robert Craven, plus welcome drinks & finger food.

When: Wednesday 22^nd February 2012 – 17:30 to 21:00 hrs

Where: Menzies Carlton, East Overcliff, Bournemouth BH1 3DN

Entry: £10.00 +VAT  Early Bird Rate

Further details and to book click here

For info on sponsor/exhibitor packages, click the link on event page, or contact Debbie Tarrier debbie@dtbusiness.co.uk or 07956 161779

Seeker News - Issue 1 coming soon!

New educational and inspirational business magazine for Dorset!

Seeker News was launched as an independent business and lifestyle website for Bournemouth, Poole and Dorset in early 2010.

Now two years later it is making the move onto the printed page.

With great features, articles, news, design and photos, Seeker News will be unlike anything else currently available in Dorset.

• Seeker News will be a monthly magazine aimed primarily at the Dorset business community but additionally featuring the arts, lifestyle and sports
• Feature led with great articles that give the readers real value
• Ideas to educate and inspire business people to grow their businesses with a distinctly upbeat perspective
• We reveal the secrets behind some of the region’s leading businesses.
• With a print run of 5500 it will be the highest business magazine circulation in Dorset
• Repeat advertisers are also featured on the website - www.seekernews.co.uk - to maximise your online and offline exposure
• The opportunity to be featured on Seeker Radio when it is launched in the spring

To find out more about Seeker News including editorial, advertising and sponsorship opportunities call us now on 01202 611074 or use the contact form.

The copy and advertising deadline for the first issue is the 31st January.

Contact us now on 01202 611074 or use the contact form to find out more about Seeker News and the opportunities available to your business.

All too often businesses continue to throw money at marketing that isn’t working for them, just because they’ve always done it – Yellow Pages, that ad in the free paper, even attending the same old networking groups that have never given them any results.

If you’d like to sit down with Seeker over a coffee and talk about which areas of your marketing spend might be going up in smoke call us now on 01202 611076.

Remember, marketing should work for you – not the other way round!

As we go into 2012 here’s the top stories of 2011.

Roger Daltrey & His Band O2 Academy Bournemouth

1. Review – Roger Daltrey & His Band, O2 Academy Bournemouth
   SUNDAY, MARCH 20, 2011 - A meticulous performance of controlled power and measured musicianship saw Roger Daltrey roll back the years, all 42 of them, as he lead a crack band through The Who’s 1969 opus, Tommy, at the Academy.
2. Fish Pedicures have come to Poole
   THURSDAY, MARCH 31, 2011 - The Garra Rufa Fish and their health benefits were discovered in the early 1800’s and are now in POOLE. They live in the hottest new spa ‘Silki Soles Foot Spa & Nail Salon’.
3. Tributes paid to ‘one of a kind’ networking legend Jonathan Rose
   FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 9, 2011 - The news of local networking legend Jonathan Rose was released in a statement today on the Carrington Club website by Malcolm Scott Walby.
4. Cinderella cleans up at Lighthouse
   SATURDAY, DECEMBER 17, 2011 - Like a modern day hopeful dreaming of success and an appearance on X Factor, Cinderella lived her life of housework and domestic abuse, all the while dreaming of dancing her way out of poverty with a new love, Prince Charming.
5. Zumba Smash dances for Charity
   SUNDAY, OCTOBER 9, 2011 - The BIC was rocking to the latin beats, the room was packed with participants dancing their way to fitness, but unfortunately not a Guinness World Record.
6. Jesus Christ Superstar Flashmobs Dolphin Centre
   MONDAY, APRIL 11, 2011 - Saturday morning shoppers had an extra treat at the Dolphin Centre this week when the cast of Jesus Christ Superstar staged a flashmob performance in the centre.
7. Glittering Opening for Seven’s Boatshed
   SUNDAY, OCTOBER 16, 2011 - Poole’s latest restaurant held a launch event on Friday evening. The restaurant, formerly Mezza Luna, offers spectacular views of Poole Park together with the great food that we’ve become used to at Black Label’s Champions and Legends at AFC Bournemouth.
8. Exciting and tense evening at Seeker Young Enterprise Company of the Year
   SATURDAY, MAY 7, 2011 - In an exciting, tense and professional event on Thursday 5th May the Young Enterprise company ‘Estupendo’ from Corfe Hills School were named as Dorset company of the year and will go on to represent the County at the regional final.
9. What I learnt in the Cold War
   MONDAY, MAY 23, 2011 - For those of you that were born in the 80s there was a time before Russian oligarchs owned Premiership football clubs. A time when the East and the West were involved in an ideological nuclear standoff, and a 16 year old from Southbourne joined the Royal Air Force to work on Tornado bombers.
10. Excitement on and off the field at Sandbanks Beach Polo
    SUNDAY, JULY 10, 2011 - The 4th British Beach Polo Championships were held at Sandbanks this weekend (8th & 9th July 2011) with it’s usual mix of excitement both on and off the Polo field.

When I came up with the Seeker brand I’ve got to admit that a couple of my personal heroes played a part in the name.

Seeker comes from a song by The Who – “The Seeker”, a band that I’ve loved since my youth. The brand concept though drew on one of my business heroes – Sir Richard Branson.

I wanted a brand that I could build across different industries, trading on the brand loyalty built up in one area to help in the launch of a new venture.

It’s a concept that’s worked, people recognise the brand and the values that we have built up over the years.

So to say thank you to these two influences on the Seeker brand here’s a couple of videos for you, I hope you enjoy them as much as I do.

By Steve Cook, MD of Seeker

Steve Cook of Seeker

It’s pointless to pretend otherwise, business is having a hard time at the moment and no amount of positive spin is going to accelerate the recovery. If customers aren’t buying there’s less money in circulation and until we feel more confident about spending it’s hard to see the way forward.

For those of us in business it is a time for very careful consideration and a brutally honest, realistic approach. We need to employ our clearest thinking if we are to find the most imaginative and lasting solutions.

I have long been an advocate of lifelong learning – and not just in my approach to my business. I believe we must always learn the valuable lessons of today if we are to avoid repeating them tomorrow. I read constantly, listen to audio books, go to seminars, attend lectures and business coaching events in an effort to grow my business as well as my knowledge base.

Most businesses are suffering from a similar problem – their customers are struggling to overcome perceived barriers to their buying decisions. Without becoming embroiled in a business manual dissection of the sales cycle, customer willingness to buy is being undermined by economic uncertainty.

So, how does a business go about countering those effects? I believe we have to strive for absolute clarity in the messages we send out. We should be providing as much information as possible and making it easy to understand. Think about your product. What are its benefits to the customer? How can that value be quantified?

For instance, we all the know the value of good public relations. A positive story in the press will boost your profile and reinforce your credentials as an expert in your field, thereby increasing customer awareness which results in more prospects becoming clients and better sales. However, in a recession businesses begin to look on PR as an unwelcome expense, a cost incurred without a guaranteed return. It becomes an intangible risk with an uncertain end product.

The trouble is, without well-managed PR you run the risk of disappearing off the radar altogether. In an effort to make Seeker’s PR services available to more potential clients we are launching a unique results-based contract with a sliding scale of charges depending on how much coverage a story gets.

Keeping an open mind helps identify innovative solutions to the issues that are affecting your business. Once you have identified the barrier to sales in your business you will be more able to focus on creating a remedy to remove the obstacle and re-energise sales.

By Steve Cook, Seeker

Seeker specialises in creating print-ready news content and marketing support for a range of business clients.
Our highly skilled and experienced team of award winning journalists and photographers have the breadth of knowledge required to raise the profile of your business.
We have just launched a results-based PR service we believe is an industry-first. Essentially, we create quality news stories and charge per published use.

“This is a great idea which we are only too happy to support,” says Seeker MD Steve Cook.

“Green issues are important to us as a business and we’ve been trying to do more to offset our carbon footprint such as recently switching to a hybrid car.”

Steve Cook of Seeker

The popular National Trust estate near Wimborne has partnered the Daily Echo’s tree planting initiative in a bid to re-instate an ancient orchard.

“When we found out the Echo was running a campaign aimed at getting businesses to plant trees we offered them the orchard as a venue,” says Elaine Arnold, the National Trust’s business development manager for Bournemouth and Poole.

“We had been planning to bring back the ancient orchard on the estate and this provides us with the perfect opportunity to move forward on what is a very local project.”

The Trust is aiming to plant 30 apple trees each sponsored by a local business on November 24.

The National Trust has been conserving Britain’s woodland since it acquired its first wood in 1902. It now manages more than 60,000 acres of woodland in England, Wales and Northern Ireland, from some of the oldest woodland in the country to relatively recent commercial conifer plantations.

Are your marketing materials the same as your competitors?

Maybe you just need a better product, or could you do more with the product you’ve got if you used a little creativity?

• 14th October we’ll be setting up at Basepoint Bournemouth to shoot stills and video.
• 8th November at Vadcot for headshot photos

Headshot photos are essential for your networking profiles and we can update these on the day for only £25 (+vat).

Additionally, if you’d like us to produce a ‘talking head’ video profile we are offering both stills and video for the special price of £100 (+vat).

To book one of these sessions please call us now on 01202 779604.

During October we’d be happy to write and distribute a press release for your business, including taking the perfect photo to accompany it for only £95! (+vat)

So for less than the cost of printer ink we can help get you into print and provide you with news to grace your website, social media and, of couse, Seeker News.

To take advantage of this offer please call us on 01202 779604, we look forward to working with you to make news.