marketing – GO4 Enterprises | "Cafe On the Rec"

Our marketing already benefitting from our interns’ hard work!

Piter Vera — Sat, 30 Aug 2014 13:50:23 +0000

Our rating (of our Facebook page) on likealyzer.com has gone up from 45 to 59! This is a fantastic improvement and reflects the impact of making some changes to our marketing. We now make sure we post regularly on Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn and this is helping to raise our profile. This is directly related to the efforts made by our intern, Milena, who has been conducting market research the past three months. One of the things she helped identify was the fact that not many people knew who were were and that we needed to focus more on promoting ourselves online. This we have been doing and its starting to pay off! We will building on this in the coming months and monitoring the impact but a hearty ‘thank you’ to both Milena and Andreea who both had good ideas and were very enthusiastic about promoting Go4 to a wider audience. A ‘thank you” too to Janine, one of our traders who puts a lot of time and energy into promoting the Go4 Market Cafe, as well as Go4 in general.

Farewell to Andreea and Milena!

Piter Vera — Sat, 30 Aug 2014 13:40:17 +0000

Sadly three months has finally come to an end and so we bid farewell to two lovely interns, Andreea and Milena. To Andreea we say “Mult noroc și “and to Milena we say “Успех и Farewell” – Good Luck and Farewell!

Andreea has spent her time with us working on a monitoring and evaluation system we can use to measure the social impact of our work with people we support. Milena has been conducting market research and recommendations for our marketing strategy. We will be publishing some of the results in the coming months.

We have really enjoyed having them with us and would like to thank not only them for all their hard work but also Essex University and Colchester Borough Council whose match funding made it all possible.

Here is what they had to say when they first came to us 3 months ago:

Andreea

“Developing a plan of action is the most important step in a effective and efficient monitoring and evaluation system. The first two weeks of my internship have mostly been revolving around planning and designing an approach that will represent a sustainable tool for future use too. The first stage of planning has got me into better understanding what Go4 Enterprises’ objectives are and developing ideas on the processes these objectives could be accomplished through. I met the staff, the volunteers and everyone in the Go4MarketCafe. During the weekly meetings, Jim and Steven have regularly engaged in conversations that helped me and the other intern to grasp their expectations. I also met Pete Hope on a trip to Clacton. During those hours, we identified potential development opportunities around that area and possible partnerships Go4 could establish with different parties in Clacton. “

Milena

“My first two weeks as a Marketing Intern were really helpful for my professional growth and overall understanding of the development of different processes and structure within GO4 Enterprises. I realized that to become familiar with this particular business I had to research a number of topics and ask frequently questions about the background of the organization as well as its social values and mission. GO4 Enterprises gives me the opportunity to engage with different topics and business areas and broaden my horizons beyond what I studied in my modules. I was introduced to new projects and future activities of the company which gave me the chance to understand its social value and mission and at the same time to see in what direction we expand our activities. During these two weeks I created and published a customer feedback survey that will help GO4 to define the problematic areas we should work on. To conclude, these two weeks contributed to my work experience and I met with new challenges that shaped my business ideas.”

Well we can honestly say that they very quickly got their heads around Go4 and what we are about (not an easy thing to do in such a short time, believe me!) and they did a very good job of meeting the remits that we gave them at the start. We are pleased with what they have achieved and can highly recommend them to any future employer! Andreea has gone off to Copenhagen to start a Masters whilst Milena is looking for opening in marketing in the Colchester area.

Marketing Survey Results Coming Soon!

Piter Vera — Mon, 04 Aug 2014 08:02:13 +0000

Milena, our Marketing Intern, has been busy, with help from various individuals, in carrying out some market research of both existing customers and members of the general public. We will soon be publishing some of the results but already we have been able to draw some interesting and important conclusions from the preliminary analysis. The end result will be that we will have a better understanding of our profile and the kinds of people who are our customers. This will help us to both improve our service and also increase our customer base, very important if we are to become a fully sustainable business. Without that we will be limited in the impact we can make in helpign unemployed peopele get back into work and/or training.

Interns start at Go4!

Piter Vera — Thu, 05 Jun 2014 16:59:35 +0000

Not one but two interns have started at Go4 this week! Andreea and Milena are two recent graduates of Essex University and they have joined us for three months to carry out two projects on behalf of Go4. As part of our strategic development, the Directors have asked them to carry out research in marketing and into monitoring & evaluation. They will be with us for 3 months and the work they are doing is jointly funded by CBC and Essex University.

Andreea will be researching monitoring and evaluation with a view to not only looking at the social value Go4 has already created in the past but at developing a system that we can implement for the future. Monitoring and evaluation is an important aspect of being able to demonstrate that what we do really does make a difference.

Milena will be carrying out market research, looking at what our profile is from a marketing perspective, as well as developing a marketing strategy for the future that will hopefully enable us to continue growing into the future.

Both of these are very important to a social enterprise like ourselves and we are very grateful for the funding that has made it all possible, thanks to CBC and Essex University. We will soon upload some more info about our new interns but for now we are very pleased to have them as part of the Go4 team.