INTRODUCTION
Colne BID Board is seeking a marketing /design partner to develop a new Place Brand and narrative for Colne Town Centre and a new website. This brief sets out a basic structure for the Place Branding and our website requirements , together with the budget available.
The Tender is in 2 parts which may be delivered by the same business or as individual pieces of work by two suppliers:-
Part 1 – Place Brand and Narrative
Part 2 – One-Stop Destination Website to Promote our Town Centre
ABOUT COLNE BID
COLNE BID is a brand new member based business organisation set up to manage the funding and projects contained within the Colne BID Business Plan 2018 – 2023. Please visit www.colnebid.co.uk for more information of the BID project.
Colne BID is not selling a tangible product, we are selling an idea that Colne town centre is the first choice for shopping /leisure needs in the local area and as such the website and brand provides the vital ‘shop frontage’ for Colne town centre businesses, news, events and to get across the Colne Brand and giving customers a reason to visit. It may be the first impression for many visitors.
A major project of the business plan is the production and implementation of a strong online presence appealing to both the key catchment area of Colne Town Centre as well as further afield. Currently we don’t have a ‘brand’ or any logo that represents Colne town centre.
The new website will be a ‘one stop’ website for Colne Town centre containing information on businesses and services, events, offers and news.
PLANNED MARKETING
Marketing and promotion forms a key objective throughout the five year term of the business plan and as such a marketing strategy will be delivered which will encompass digital marketing alongside traditional print, advertising in local newspapers and magazines, town centre newsletters (e-version), radio advertising and others. A multi channel marketing campaign approach for Colne will be required with targeted campaigns at key trading times such as Christmas and to support key events. All planned marketing and branding will include the website address with specific online social media and digital marketing covered separately.
TARGET AUDIENCE
As with most town centres, we are dealing with a very wide demographic audience as such it would not be sensible to target our website at a particular sector or age range. It should be assumed that our target audience are conversant with the basics of navigating a mobile enabled website. It will be aimed at the local residential and business catchment as well as tourists and visitors new to the area.
Part 1: Place Brand and Narrative
Despite the current climate of declining town centres and various challenges facing town centres and High Streets, Colne is bucking the trend and is experiencing a surge of investment, new businesses opening up, plans for additional town centre living /flats and new leisure attractions , bars and music venues.
Colne is fast becoming a vibrant town to visit, attracting more visitors from the Burnley and Pendle area where people come to Colne for experiences, events, to live and spend leisure time, work and learn as well as shop and spend money. We should not aim to compete with bigger towns, like Burnley, as our offer is entirely different. It is quirky, surprising and at the same time, occasionally reassuringly traditional. It is pie n’peas and real ale, but also cocktails and high culture. Colne does not, on the whole, have national high street brands, but it does have quality, independent retailers, bars and restaurants that sets us apart from neighbouring towns. Having said that, it also has another draw in the shape of Boundary Mill – a very large, discounte department store. Boundary Mill is also accessible on foot from Colne, with hundreds of thousands of destination visitors each year, yet very few visitors to Boundary Mill also visit Colne.
Colne is also rich in history, with most of the town being a Conservation Area. It has tales aplenty, from its part on the Lancashire Witch Story (an extant inn on Keighley Road was where the cursed peddler was taken to recuperate), the home town of Wallace Hartley, the Titanic Band Leader, to the death of the Fattest Man in the World (The Commercial), to the world’s largest paving slab (outside the Town Hall) to the World’s First Ever Cinema (still standing on Colne Lane). It is a little town with three theatres and a hard to believe (but true) number of music venues (20). Colners themselves stand apart from their neighbours, warm, but with a sharp sense of humour. Colne is the Capital of Pennine Cycling and also has an enormous network of footpaths traversing glorious countryside that is completely accessible on foot from the town centre.
Here’s just a few exciting projects happening this year:
•Earnie’s – Leisure and Entertainment venue in the former KIPPAX building on Dockray St, Colne. A new indoor centre for all ages incorporating: Roller skating, Airsoft and paintball, billiards and pool, arcades, Scare Mill, party areas, bar and food court.
•The former Blockbuster Video building is being converted into a large retail unit on the ground floor with Flats/ residential to the upper floors.
•A sale has been agreed on former NatWest building and it will be transformed into a destination leisure venue
•Former Health Centre on Market St – is about to be demolished and rebuilt with four new retail units and 11 flats above.
The successful agency will be expected to provide:
- A brand name and logo which inspires a positive emotional connection with our shoppers and visitors.
- An inspiring, authentic written ‘story’ for Colne that can be understood by a wide range of audiences capturing the spirit and journey of the town centre. The Colne story: to visit, to shop, to enjoy etc.
- A Visual Branding Tool Kit with examples of how to use the brand – in print, online, digital etc.
- New Photographic images may be required that illustrate the story of Colne for the brand and the website (additional budget of up to £500 allocated).
The tool kit will be primarily used on the new Colne Town Centre website, but also across a wide range of marketing materials including, but not limited to print, digital, signage, large scale advertising, video etc.
Part 2 – One Stop Destination Website to Promote our Town Centre.
WEB DESIGN REQUIREMENTS
COLNE BID is not a name that will carry much relevance to the average user of the website and so it should be noted that the main content of the site will not focus on the work of Colne BID or carry much in the way of prominent branding. Colne BID branding should however be visible somewhere on the site and will carry links to the existing BID website (www.colnebid.co.uk), in a drop down menu, for visitors who would like to learn more. See www.discoverkeighley.co.uk as an example of a Business Improvement District project that has undertaken a similar Place Brand and Website project and successfully linked it to the BID.
The new Colne Town Centre branding and guidelines will be made available as soon as possible which should be incorporated into the website design. This website will not be for Colne town centre as a place for listings and news about entertainment, leisure, food and drink, sport, entertainment, shopping and events, public transport, history, parking etc.
The website does need to offer Colne BID an opportunity to provide specific benefits /promotion opportunities for the Colne BID members (as they are funding it through the BID levy) and to promote projects undertaken by Colne BID.
WEBSITE FEATURES/CONTENT
The main purpose of the website is to be visually appealing and informative which will help to drive physical footfall into the town centre. Main content should therefore include the business directory and feature businesses, events calendar, blog and RSS social media feeds as well as information to include days out and parking, public information etc.
Website Functionality and Architecture desired for this project:
- Search function.
- Feedback Form & Contact Us.
- Interactive Map.
- Event Calendar.
- Searchable listing tool.
- Newsletter sign up.
- Exclusive Members only area.
- Ability to monitor & track traffic, response rates and interactions etc.
- Ability to expand with continuous images, videos and content.
- Ability for BID Team to add, edit and format content.
- Ability to link a wide range of documents such as pdfs and upload multiple documents at one time (including audio and video).
- Ability to reorder pages and section headings on the navigation and sub navigation bars easily within site structure.
- Ability for scheduled publishing, archiving and page removal dates.
- ‘Share me’ buttons for users to share content across common social media platforms.
- Full compatibility with Google Analytics
- Allow placement of images and be able to align in different ways (left, right, up, down, text wrapping), and ability to manage image properties and file sizes so we don’t have to resize or crop images before inserting’
- Easy to update for nontechnical people.
- Ability to edit meta data for SEO.
- Business profile pages (About section plus links to social media/website).
- Newsletter/Email marketing/GDPA friendly.
- Customer Surveys.
- Blog.
- Photo & video galleries.
- Facility for Non-intrusive adverts.
- Links to social media.
- Compatibility with common browsers.
- Mobile optimised.
- Space for vacant premises. Shop window for new businesses wishing to locate within ColneTown Centre.
BUDGET
Colne Website
The maximum budget for the website design and development is £4,000. (Although it should be noted there may be an additional allocation /funding in addition to the £4000 to develop a Colne Heritage layer to the website which can be discussed further with the successful business).
If the website specification can be achieved under this budget this would be considered favourably. This project is funded by private sector business money so we seek to get best value to reinvest back into the COLNE BID.
Place Brand & Narrative
£1000 – £1500
Photography
£500 Provision for updated photography /imagery for the website site and branding purposes. If you are not able to provide photography this should be noted in your proposal.
Future Business
The agency that wins this tender is likely to benefit from considerable future business as we work to deliver the BID. The ‘Promote’ element of our delivery is one of the most important.
TIMESCALE
The website should be live no later than mid July 2019 (accepting that not all features /functions may not be 100% populated) and further features will be built /added at a later date.
This Place Brand work needs to be approved by the Colne BID Board by mid June 2019.
THE TENDER PROCESS
Colne BID invites interested agencies and businesses to submit written proposals and budget outline.
These should be submitted no later than 12:00 noon on MONDAY 1st APRIL 2019
If you are shortlisted, you will be invited to a face-to-face pitch later that week.
Please prepare to present your approach, experience, team and costs for up to 30 minutes, followed by up to 30 minutes of Q+A with members of Colne BID’s Board .
Please provide a printed copy of your presentation to leave behind after the pitch.
Any questions for clarification can be submitted to prior to bid submission. ALL CORRESPONDENCE, QUESTIONS AND BID SUBMISSIONS ARE TO BE SENT TO:
Lisa Durkin- Colne BID Manager e : manager@colnebid.co.uk M: 07970 752989
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