Today's Guest

Henry McIntosh is the founder and CEO of Twenty-One Twelve Marketing. Based in the UK but working globally, the firm delivers predictable results for high-ticket businesses in niche sectors looking to scale up to the next level. Henry works with successful B2B and B2C clients, usually in the $1-10 million revenue range. Twenty-One Twelve Marketing focuses on content marketing and synergistic non-competitive partnerships to increase your exposure and deliver consistent growth. He’s helped sell superyachts, written copy for geospatial data engineers, and even helped sell smoke prevention vents. Henry delivers quality results and continues to expand his eclectic client base with compelling marketing strategies. 

Resources Shared

• Twenty One Twelve Marketing
• Henry McIntosh | LinkedIn
• Thryv
  

Episode Transcript

(Please excuse grammatical errors due to transcription)

Gordon Henry:

Hey, hey, this is Gordon Henry at Winning on Main Street, and today we're lucky to have an expert on small business marketing, Henry McIntosh. Welcome Henry.

Henry McIntosh:

Hi Gordon. Thanks for having me.

Gordon Henry:

Great to have you. Always good to have another Henry. So, quick bio on Henry. Henry is the founder of 2112 Marketing and the Apres Ski Winter Festival Glow. We'll talk about that, too. His firm's clients range from startups to established businesses they operate in highly competitive or niche sectors and 2112 helps them differentiate themselves with compelling marketing strategies. Henry is a former journalist, so am, I by the way, a copywriter and award-winning blogger. He's written from major brands through to national newspapers. He's worked on countless marketing campaigns for businesses, big and small. He loves the creative side, but hates the fluff. 2112's services are always designed to drive ROI. What will you our listeners learn in this episode? We're all always trying to get better at acquiring and retaining customers. Henry has done this many times for businesses, big and small. Try to take away just one thing you can use and it will make the next 20 to 30 minutes more than worthwhile.

So Henry, again, great to have you. Why don't you just start by telling us the story behind how you got rolling with 2112 Marketing?

Henry McIntosh:

For sure. So, I mean, I started the business from quite an early age, so I was actually 24 when I started the business, which seems very young and that was eight years ago now. But it was one of those things where I had no responsibilities at the time and I was working as a copywriter, I was working as a journalist and one of my copywriting clients, we wrote that blog for them. So we did everything for this blog. It was in the digital and technology sector and we won a UK blog award. So we beat some big companies, won the award, and we looked at it and we thought, well, we should probably offer this to your clients, now and we should probably offer this as far and wide as possible because clearly we're doing something right.

So from that 2112 was born because we decided rather than offer it for his current business, which didn't quite make sense to do, we'd start a new business. So we created 2112. For the first couple of years running the business, I actually kept my freelance journalism going, just because, as most listeners can attest, it's quite difficult, right, in the first couple of years. So, that's really why we started and then since then we've gone through plenty of tweaks and iterations to get to where we are today.

Gordon Henry:

Sounds good. What kind of journalism were you pursuing? Were you a business journalist?

Henry McIntosh:

So I did a little bit of business journalism. Most of it was luxury and then some of it was digital and technology. So, I had it pretty good as far as it went in terms of luxury journalism. So, I worked for a magazine called, or one of the magazines I worked for was Luxurious Magazine, so the gigs I had to cover for that were traveling around the world and covering five star hotels, going to the latest restaurants and reviewing them.

Gordon Henry:

Tough work, very difficult.

Henry McIntosh:

Not exactly hard hitting, war correspondence stuff, but it was good fun, for sure.

Gordon Henry:

Good work, if you can get it, we like to say.

Henry McIntosh:

Definitely.

Gordon Henry:

Tell us a little bit more about 2112 and your unique approach. I mean, I think every agency likes to think they do things a little differently. So what's unique about the approach of 2112?

Henry McIntosh:

For sure. I think, look, most agencies there's overlap in some shape or form. So I think you're right. In terms of our positioning, we call ourselves the commercial collaborations' agency. So our focus is on partnerships and content marketing. So we're big believers that actually you can quickly gain traction through your marketing by joining up with the right partners and creating really unique and compelling content. So not your run-of-the-mill AI stuff, but can a partnership drive your content marketing strategy? So when we start working with a client, we look at what very complimentary, but non-competitive businesses they can work with to drive mutual success. So we feel that, although we are not alone in being a partnership agency or a content marketing agency, we feel it's underserved within the SME market for sure.

Gordon Henry:

And, just before the show we were talking a little bit about your sort of ideal client profile. I think you said you do businesses all the way up to $20 million in revenue? But who's your typical customer, your ideal customer, your sweet spot?

Henry McIntosh:

So we define our sweet spot as being, what we call small but successful businesses. So what I mean by that is they've often reached a point in their growth where they've grown through referrals and they've reached this ceiling where referrals are unpredictable and difficult scale. Now, there are probably ways they could prompt more referrals, but what we look at is how do they reach the next level in their growth? So quite often these companies are anywhere upwards of half a million in revenue and they're looking at their growth strategy and maybe it's plateaued. And what we're trying to come in and do is set the strategy for them to grow to that next level.

Gordon Henry:

Is it mostly lead gen like new customer acquisition? Is it retention strategies? What's the gamut of what you do there?

Henry McIntosh:

We normally apply what we call the three S's to each new client that we approach. So the first S is speed, and what speed looks at is how do you drive more from existing? So most people have a wealth of opportunities sat under their nose and that's within their existing data, so their brand aware audiences. So that might be their website data. So maybe their website needs improving to drive more inquiries. They might have good connections on LinkedIn that they haven't communicated with in a long time. They might have good connections who they don't have on LinkedIn, they haven't spoken to in years, but highly relevant to what they do. So actually just having a better communication strategy around your existing data will drive quick wins. So you said at the start, if you take one thing from the call today, I think most of your listeners could benefit from this December, looking at what connections they have, who have they got in their email, in their black book, who they know who they could ask for a referral or they could educate on what they do?

And that process alone drives quick wins for our clients. But that's obviously quite finite. So at a certain point you're going to exhaust that data.

So what we look at next is synergy. So this is where we bring in the collaboration. So, we look at those complimentary but non-competitive businesses. So to give you an example, one of our clients is a wealth management firm and they will only work with people who have over a million in funds under management. So they're very difficult to reach these individuals. We could spend thousands on Google, but we just get buried by their competitors. So the way we approach it is by partnering them with solicitors and accountancy firms. Because we know these two strategic partners can provide them with referrals. So we go in, we set up continuous professional development sessions, as our client, for these type of firms to educate them on all the ways they could refer them and offer better financial advice to their clients, right?

So, simply by virtue of that, by virtue of those partnerships, we're generating a lot of referrals for our client, which are high quality leads they can then convert. So there's a little bit of, within your communication strategy, you can improve your retention because your clients are educated on all the different services you offer, but also they feel like you're an expert and they feel like you're communicating well with them. And then in terms of acquiring net new, we're looking at, okay, how does the partnership need to look? What content do we need to be producing to reach net new audiences? Who are your ideal target market?

Gordon Henry:

One thing a small business might take away from this call, I have found, and we've talked about it on the show before, so many small businesses could do a better job of staying in touch with their existing customers. I, as a homeowner, know that I'll contact a guy about installing an air conditioning or a roof or a gutter or a cleaning service or what have you. And if it's one of those things that can be a one-time job, you very often never hear from them again. They just forget about you and they do a poor job of saying, "Hey, could I come back?" And almost every business I find there is some seasonality to it. So if it's a landscaping business, there's what they do in the spring, but it's also, "Can I do your snow removal?"

If it's an auto repair business, cars need different treatment in the winter than they do in the summer, right? All these things. And if they stay in touch with you and say, "Hey, I did that work for you six months ago on X, can I do Y for you, now that it's the spring, now that it's the fall, whatever." And they almost never do. They just do a really bad job of staying in touch. And that's such a simple thing, it's just send me a postcard or send me an email, because very often I'm looking for it. I don't have you top of mind and if I don't come to you, I'll go to your competitor and then you're gone.

Henry McIntosh:

For sure. And I think most business owners, they take for granted how much their client base actually knows about them. So they'll say things to me like, "Oh yeah, well we've mentioned it to them before." And if you walk in your client's shoes, everyone's so busy, they might've missed it, they might've misheard. You've got to consistently be communicating with them, as you said, and you are right, educating them on all the different things you can offer throughout the year, not just communicating when you need the work because that is very transparent as well, when it's a desperate plea for work rather than, and you need to stay front of mind as well because, say you're a B2B business, most of the data points to the fact that, it depends what industry you're in, but only 5% of your target market are actually in buying mode at any one time.

So, what that tells you is, you've got this massive piece of the market and you are never going to be able to predict the timing of when they go into buying mode. Now there might be certain times of the year, like financial year-end where budgets are released and things like that, which maybe can give you some intent data on when to contact them, but for the most part what this means is you need to be communicating with your client base all the time.

Gordon Henry:

In terms of your own experience building up your own company, I was just curious, you told us you used to be a journalist and you started this, how long have you been in business, 2112?

Henry McIntosh:

So it will be eight years in January. So, in terms of building it up, because all of my background was in luxury, we started as an agency for luxury brands. What we found was we started getting offered projects that weren't in luxury but were too good to turn down. So after about two years we had to change because we took on a client in construction, a client in engineering who, they weren't in luxury at all. Since then, we've repositioned this commercial collaborations' agency because we're industry agnostic. So our clients vary from mortgage brokers right through to sport, hospitality, engineering, and it just covers this wide breadth. But what we do and our approach, our approach for that wealth management company with the CPDs is the same as an engineering client. So both of them, we design CPDs for strategic partners and we try and sell through into the end client through those partners. So, the way we approach things is ...

Gordon Henry:

CPDs? What are CPDs?

Henry McIntosh:

Sorry, Continuous Professional Development. So, in the UK, we know for example, more professional services based roles will be required to go for a certain amount of professional development every year. So for solicitors and accountants, it's just gone up to 20 hours a year. So it's a great way to, and these are professionals who have access and know a lot about a lot of businesses. So they are great strategic partners for referrals. So what we do is we produce a lot CPDs for roles like that. To position our clients as credible experts so that when these roles, like a solicitor or an accountant, as someone with a financial planning issue, they refer to our client. So that gives you a little bit of insight into the way we approach things. So, that change of positioning was quite crucial because nowadays we do a lot in financial services is another area we do a lot of work in. So, it's not luxury, but we can get great results in it. So for us it's a no-brainer.

Gordon Henry:

Okay. And are you usually working on a project basis or do you have clients hiring you on an ongoing retainer business, so you're just working on the next phase of their marketing campaign?

Henry McIntosh:

It varies, but normally a retainer. The vast majority, 70% of our revenue is a retainer base. And that's mainly because we like to start from really strategic level with our clients and starting with their aims, boiling it down, looking at the steps they need to go through, putting together a timeline and then executing on their behalf. So, some of our clients we have worked with for five years now, one of the things we really focus on is that delivery, that consistency of delivery. It's very difficult as an agency to not have that retained base because you get so caught up in the project that by the time you've finished it and you come up for air and there's nothing in the pipeline, that's when things are quite hairy. So, definitely we focus on the retained work.

Gordon Henry:

Got it. Henry, we're going to take a quick break and we'll be back in just 30 seconds after a word from our sponsor. With more from Henry McIntosh, don't go anywhere.

Thryv:

This episode of Winning on Main Street is brought to you by Thryv. The small business management platform that you and your customers will love, no matter where you are. Thryv helps you run your business, keep organized, and get paid faster, all from one login and dashboard. Thryv makes it easy for customers to find you online, instantly interact and stay engaged. And with free unlimited support 24/7, there really is no comparison. Go to Thryv.com/pod for a quick demo to see everything Thryv can do.

Gordon Henry:

And we're back with Henry Macintosh, head of 2112 Marketing Agency. Really interesting conversation, especially because Henry does this work all over the world. Henry, I wanted to ask you, where should listeners find you if they aren't interested in potentially pursuing you, a retainer basis, project basis, how should they find you?

Henry McIntosh:

So they're welcome to, well, they can find me on LinkedIn, so if they search for Henry Macintosh or they search for 2112 Marketing, hopefully we'll come up, if we've done our job properly. And more than welcome to connect with me, add a note, so I know that you've come through this podcast would be useful and then we'll go from there.

Gordon Henry:

Okay, that's awesome. I did want to ask you about the Glow Festival. So you have something to do with this Glow Festival, which sounds very cool. It's a winter Apres Ski Festival.

Henry McIntosh:

That's correct. So, I mean Glow is an interesting one. So we've run it for three years now and we normally run it for over the course of a week, and we have about 500 people a night coming and attending. And we do it in a heated marquee and we dress it apres ski style. And we have bands that perform at a lot of the apres ski bars around Europe. But it was born out of, I actually run it with my brother-in-Law who runs a music agency who's performed in Val d'Isère and all of these places, great ski resorts. But it was born out of COVID because one of my clients came to me and they run a luxury hospitality venue and they had this field on the river in Henley-on-Thames, which Henley-on-Thames is the home of the Royal Regatta in the UK.

So, it's quite well renowned, really nice location. We're at the height of COVID and he said, "What should I do with this land? How should I use it? I've paid for it. Let's do something." And we actually decided we'd do a really rough and ready bar by the river, just one single marquee with no sides over it, which is, even in the summer in England, is very dangerous, and a shipping container bar. And it was very rough and ready and it worked incredibly well. And the one thing we did was we said to my brother-in-Law, bring your bands down and we'll do a profit split with the band. So, if we can fill the venue, they take a cut of the profits, let's see how it goes. And the nights were just sold out every time.

So from that we decided what's a really cool concept we could take into non-COVID times and we decided we should focus on the music. And we felt apres ski was just quite a cool, quite an unusual thing. So it gives us a big point of difference, right? Because you're doing apres ski when there's no skiing and there's not even any snow, right? It's a bit weird, but everyone turns up in their ski gear, people are there in their goggles, snow boots, got people in gold onesies, the band and the bar stuff will get dressed up. We try and theme the cocktails and all of that sort of thing. So it's small, but it's really good fun and I think that that's what we take from it is that you just show people a bit of fun. It doesn't matter if it's a little bit rough and ready, but it's making it enjoyable, making it quirky.

Gordon Henry:

And is this still being done in Henley or is it someplace else?

Henry McIntosh:

So it's still in Henley at the moment, so we've actually just finished it. So my voice probably sounds a little bit hoarse because we've just finished the festival this weekend. So, it was quite a busy time, but it went well. So all good.

Gordon Henry:

Very good, very good. Well, Henry, I really enjoyed speaking with you and welcome. Appreciate you joining us on the show. And so again, for listeners who want to get in touch with Henry McIntosh. 2112 Marketing or look you up, Henry McIntosh, that's M-C-I-N-T-O-S-H on LinkedIn. And if they want to check out the Glow Festival, how do people find out about that?

Henry McIntosh:

So Glow Festival, you can find us at Glow Henley on Instagram or via the website glowhenley.com. So feel free to check out, maybe we'll need to do a US version somewhere where you can't ski, at some point in time.

Gordon Henry:

Sounds good. Well Henry, great to have you on the show and good luck with 2112.

Henry McIntosh:

Thanks Gordon, thanks for having me on.

Gordon Henry:

And I want to thank our producer, Tim Alleman and our coordinators Diette Barnett and Daniel Huddleston. And if you enjoyed this podcast, tell your colleagues, friends, family to subscribe. Please leave us a five star review. We'd really appreciate it. It helps us in the rankings. Small business runs better on Thryv. Get a free demo at Thryv. Again, that's T-H-R-Y-V.com/pod. Check out our new free product command center at Thryv.com. Until next time, make it a great week.

Listener Reviews