elephant comms moves up a gear to drive next free advice day for small businesses

Community investment blog by Karen Waugh

We are doing something different for our next free PR advice day for small businesses on Wednesday 16^th October. Over the last 18 months, we put aside a day every few months to go out and visit small business start ups - and give each of them some free time discussing simple ideas they can implement to help grow their new ventures.

There has been a very positive response to our days and the days have always been over-subscribed. With this in mind, our next advice will take a different format. Hosted at our new offices, everyone in the agency will be available for the day, each offering free advice on their particular area of specialism – from branding to social media, events to writing news releases.

This means the elephant team will be able to help more small businesses during the day – and small businesses will be able to pick specific areas, from a much broader range of topics, that they would like to cover during the day.

In addition to meeting new people, we will be re-visiting some of the businesses we have met over the last 18 months, a chance to catch up on how they are getting on with the plans they have been working to.

The small business advice days form an integral part of our four-prong community investment programme, in which we aim to make a real difference in local community.

The team at elephant communications recognises that with small businesses so important to the economy, all too often the people we meet have little idea about how they can use PR to promote their ventures cost-effectively. Our advice days give small business start-ups access to best practice for free. Our national research of SMEs reveals that whilst many SMEs are having a tough time, few make significant use of low or no cost PR in promoting their ventures, engaging with local media.

Having met and helped dozens of small businesses in the last year or so, it is apparent there is so much drive, ideas and ambition in the sector - but more needs to be done to help small firms grow. The concept of our free advice days is an authentic contribution from elephant to provide some practical help and put something back into the community. When we started, we were three people. We now have 12 and mobilizing the whole team for our advice days means we can meet and help more businesses in a single day.

For more information on our next small business advice days, email Karen@elephantcommunications.co.uk