Stop relying on chasing demand. Start creating it.

Most business conversations start in roughly the same place.

What do you do? What does it cost? Why are you better? Would you like a meeting?

It’s transactional from the beginning.

Working with Mental Health 360 gives you another conversation to have.

A genuine relationship with a charity can give your business something worthwhile to talk about: the people you’re helping, the communities you’re supporting, an event you’re creating, a campaign you’re backing or an idea we’re developing together.

The conversation doesn’t have to begin with what you’re trying to sell.

It can begin with what you’re trying to do.

That changes the dynamic.

It gives customers, prospects, employees and partners a reason to engage with your business on a different level.

We can bring together the commercial objective of your business with the social purpose of Mental Health 360 and create something people genuinely have a reason to notice.

It could be a campaign, an event, a challenge, a partnership, a piece of research, a community initiative or an idea neither organisation has tried before.

Then we build the marketing around it.

The content, PR, social media, digital activity and email come afterwards. They’re the means of taking the idea to market.

They’re not the idea.

Another LinkedIn post telling everybody how good your business is probably isn’t going to change very much.

What does the market think when it sees your name?

A brand is considerably more than a logo.

It’s what people understand about the business, what they associate with it and, importantly, why they should remember it.

Sometimes the challenge isn’t that a business needs a new identity. It’s that the business has evolved but the story it tells hasn’t kept up.

We can help businesses look at their positioning, proposition, messaging and the way they’re presenting themselves to the market.

Give the market a reason to notice.

A campaign should start with the idea, not the channel.

What are we trying to achieve? Who needs to notice? What might genuinely interest them? And what could make them want to engage, participate or share it?

Once we’ve got something worth saying, we can decide how best to say it.

That might involve PR, content, social media, digital marketing, email, events, partnerships or a combination of them.

There’s nothing wrong with local networking.

It works.

Relationships matter. Referrals matter. Sometimes being in the right room with the right people creates exactly the opportunity a business needs.

But it costs something every business has a finite amount of.

Time.

There are only so many breakfasts, lunches, networking events and meetings you can physically attend.

Traditional business development often starts by identifying somebody you want to sell to and trying to get their attention.

Marketing can change the balance.

Build recognition. Create interest. Give people a reason to engage. Make the business visible beyond its existing network.

Then your business-development team isn’t necessarily starting with a cold introduction.

They have a conversation somebody already wants to have.

That’s where marketing and business development start working together.

The objective isn’t more posts, more emails or more marketing activity for the sake of it.

The people behind Mental Health 360 had commercial careers before Mental Health 360.

We’ve developed and taken products to market, worked across B2B and B2C environments, professional and regulated services and mass consumer markets.

We understand marketing from the perspective of people who have also had responsibility for the commercial result.

So before we recommend another campaign, we’ll ask whether there’s actually something worth campaigning about.

Before spending money attracting more people, we’ll ask whether the proposition gives them a reason to buy.

And if we think the story needs changing first, we’ll say so.