‘Ambassador’ to help manufacturers reach out across the world
MANUFACTURERS IN Yorkshire have the chance to reach out to a global audience with help from a new “ambassador”.
Dave Pannell has been appointed manufacturing ambassador for Yorkshire by The Chartered Institute of Marketing (CIM). He will be offering free advice and organising events to help companies compete across the UK and overseas.
Mr Pannell, who is marketing director of Huddersfield-based Design Mechanics, said: “We have some amazing manufacturing businesses here in Yorkshire, but they are often run by engineers, and engineers are not always good at promoting what they do.”
He plans to help manufacturers across Yorkshire to prepare their marketing strategies for a post-Brexit world.
He added: “What we find, time and again, with established manufacturing businesses is that they still rely on pre-internet ways of finding sales.
“They may have built up a good name for themselves in their industry over the years, but that doesn’t mean anything to younger buyers who are going online to find suppliers and making a decision on what they find there and then.
“Manufacturers often don’t understand marketing, and marketing professionals often don’t really understand manufacturers.
“I want to bring the two disciplines together for the benefit of the Yorkshire economy.”
Diane Earles, network manager for The Chartered Institute of Marketing, said: “Dave is quite a rare find, as he has both an indepth knowledge of marketing and a great understanding of the manufacturing culture, because he worked with that sector for so long.”