Golden opportunity for businesses to help charity

Businesses are being offered the chance to help elderly people who may be struggling during lockdown with the launch of a new marketing venture.

Award-winning marketing professional Hannah Montgomery is launching her new business Golddust Direct this week. Dubbed ‘Moonpig for businesses’ it offers firms a direct mail package to raise their profile.

As part of the service, firms can add an extra donation to help Hannah’s charity Re-Engage Lichfield, which helps combat loneliness in the elderly by providing social contact. The donation through Golddust Direct would pay for a letter or card to be sent to an elderly person.

“This fulfils a company’s CSR requirements and it’s lovely for the recipient to get something through the post,” said Hannah, who is also linking with the Woodland Trust, making donations to offset the carbon footprint of the firm.

Hannah, who has just been named 2021 Young Professional of the Year at the Lichfield, Tamworth, Sutton Coldfield and Cannock Chase Chambers of Commerce awards, said she wanted to use her expertise to help local firms who may be struggling and boost her charity at the same time.

Golddust Direct offers a cost-effective direct mail package, in which firms can choose from a selection of A5 printed postcards, personalise the detail and send out to staff, customers or potential clients to raise their profile.

Golddust Direct officially launched with a Valentine-themed campaign giving firms the chance to send postcards to staff thanking them for all their hard work during the Covid lockdowns.

Hannah, 35, said: “It was something I had always wanted to do, and then when lockdown came it became clear that businesses needed all the help they could get to raise awareness about their services and products.

“Businesses can go onto the website, choose a design, personalise it with their own message and then we send it out. It’s just like Moonpig for businesses really.

“We’re launching with a Valentine campaign for businesses to send a thank you note to employees for all their hard work. We want employees to feel the love – many of them have been working from home for months and it’s a great way for employers to make contact and say thank you.”

Hannah already runs Golddust Marketing, based in Lichfield, and said she had seen how successful direct mail campaigns could be as a marketing tool. However, she said they could sometimes be costly.

“It works very well if it is done in the right way, it just sets you apart from the competition,” she said. “You just need a clever idea and to execute it well. I have had so many clients want to use direct mail, but they can’t afford it and find it a time-consuming process. With designers, printing and postage it can work out to be a heavy initial investment.

“This offers them a service for £249 – they can choose and edit a design and get 50 cards sent out – they can always send more once they have tried the campaign and seen the results.”

Hannah said companies who had trialled her new service had already seen huge success. Emma Smith, Director at ES Research said her campaign resulted in 700 new contacts. And Jasmine Parr, from Carefor, said: “We secured a meeting that turned into a sale. This gave us a significant return on our investment and also helped our brand stand out from the competition.”

To find out more about Golddust Direct, visit www.golddust.direct or call Hannah on 0330 055 26 05.