ANM Group is one of the largest producer owned co-operative businesses in Scotland and the UK and plays a major role in Scotland's agricultural, commercial and hospitality sectors specialising in auction, appraisal and valuation services for livestock, vehicles, plant, machinery, equipment and specialist items. ANM also have a rural property division specialising in sales and valuations of farms, estates and agricultural land. We had a highly successful Knowledge Transfer Partnership (KTP) project with the University of Aberdeen Business School to develop, implement and sustain a step-change digital marketing and communication strategy targeted at converting how ANM engaged with our customers, members, employees and partners.
The KTP transformed the way we connect and engage with our stakeholders. It allowed us to significantly increase the number of customers that engaged with us which resulted in a 420% increase in online engagement and a 6-fold increase in online reach. Our team use a range of digital marketing tools to specifically target potential customers saving us time and money to concentrate on other areas of the business.
The findings from the KTP have helped us significantly over the last year. Due to Covid-19 and the restrictions placed on the business, we fast tracked and implemented several significant changes to allow more of our business to operate online. This allowed us to hold live non-catalogued online sales in real time of all categories of livestock – a first in the UK. It also allowed the business to stream all sales online for the benefit of vendors who were unable to attend sales due to restrictions – this in addition to buyer platforms. Using a multi camera approach all steaming on the same platform with live sound so they could see their stock sold. Vehicle and Machinery sales were also held entirely online with customers able to forward enter all items for sale ahead of the sales and keep up to date with all equipment entered for sale. Using the knowledge from the KTP we were able to use various findings from the project including Google Analytical data to target our customer base, refresh and simplify our website and improve how we communicated and interacted with our customers.
The KTP delivered the know-how capability and a confidence that has empowered our team to implement meaningful and high impact changes across the business. We use the knowledge from the KTP daily which continues to attract ways of interacting with customers.
Grant Rogerson, CEO, ANM Group
Are you an ambitious company looking to drive transformational change and strategic growth, enhance productivity and develop your workforce? If so, register for the University of Aberdeen Business School’s Knowledge Transfer Partnership event on 4th February 2021, 9.30am-10.30am. Full details & booking link:https://www.abdn.ac.uk/business/events/16249/
