Client of the Month – Westfield Patterns

Working with our clients and getting to know them better also means we get to hear about their successes and achievements. When you work together with a client on their marketing strategy, it’s always great to hear that this is having the desired effect. However, we felt we needed to do more to tell everyone about it. That’s why we’ve introduced a new feature to our blogs – our client of the month – to showcase our clients’ successes.
Our first client of the month is Westfield Patterns, a thermoform packaging manufacturer based in the UK. Here’s their story:
Westfield Patterns was founded in 1989 and is run by Ian and Angie Whitfield. They produce thermoformed food and non-food packaging and produce their own range of off-the-shelf products but also design bespoke packaging for their clients. Thermoformed packaging is basically any type of plastic packaging that manufacturers might need to protect their products and prolong shelf life, including plastic trays, food packaging, chocolate moulds, chocolate box inserts and macaron trays. It’s all done within the UK as well and companies often come to them because they can provide bespoke packaging for less than they thought and within much shorter lead times, as they don’t come from overseas.
After having been in business for over 25 years, Angie and Ian decided that they needed some help in what had been quite a challenging market. After the 2008 recession, many UK manufacturers had disappeared or struggled against the competition with China. However, as Westfield had always designed their own tools and produced products within the UK they found there was more and more demand for their bespoke services. This coupled with the rise in innovative smaller food manufacturers such as chocolatiers, artisan cheesemakers and bakers and helped them gain an advantage. Being a small company themselves, they didn’t have the time to try to exploit the growing demand and realised they needed help. They came to Exceptional Thinking because they wanted us to act as another member of their staff and not only to market their business to a defined audience and generate leads, but also to follow up the leads for them.
We developed a strategy for Westfield that has enabled them to target different sectors. Over the course of time we have worked together to gain leads through methods such as email marketing, social media marketing and telemarketing. Recently Angie asked us to run a campaign to promote their multi 6 or 12 cavity macaron trays. This included emails, sample distribution and a lead nurturing system. So far, this has been a particularly successful campaign resulting in a 35,000 unit order from a new customer and a commitment to use them as their UK supplier. Angie said: ‘Working with Exceptional Thinking has really paid off. We’ve got customers that we wouldn’t have had or been in contact with without their help’.
Angie found she just didn’t have the time to do any follow ups let alone send out any emails. Having Exceptional Thinking on board has meant she can concentrate on developing new products as well as focussing on existing customers. She said: ‘Good marketing takes time and involves a continual two way communication process between you and the service provider’. She added: ‘Exceptional Thinking have not only acted as a member of my team to generate leads but they have been excellent at following them up and have kept me fully updated with progress.’
So what’s the future for Westfield? Angie and Ian are currently developing some new chocolate products of their own including a 3D robot mould, guardsman mould and pig mould. They will be looking to Exceptional Thinking to help them to find ways to promote this to chocolatiers and continue the previous run of successful campaigns.
To find out more about Westfield Patterns and what they do visit www.westfieldthermoform.com.