Altrincham Duck

Who are Made in Cheshire?
We’re a family business. Jacinta’s our ‘poster girl’ and first point of contact and handles events, marketing, social media management and training. With a proven flair for writing she has a passion for words and loves helping companies with their press releases and copywriting needs. Dan’s our web guru, self-confessed geek and lover of anything techie. He brings a large portfolio of website building experience to MIC from a simple web presence to a full ecommerce solution. Julia’s our organiser, she’s super-efficient and loves nothing more than ticking a task of a ‘to do’ list. With a professional career in law and finance she brings life experience and business knowledge to the team (that’s our polite way of saying she’s the old one!).

What services do you offer?
Between the three of us we bring experience and expertise in a lot of different areas. We offer website design – from a micro-site to a full e-commerce solution - and graphic design, which covers everything from artwork for marketing material like business cards, a brochure, an advertisement or a pop-up banner to logo design and social media graphics. We also offer social media training or if you’re short on time, but want to develop a social media presence, we can manage your accounts for you. We have a passion for writing so if you need copy writing, a press release, content for your website or a blog, we’d love to help. If you’re launching a new company or product or if you’re planning a corporate event we can manage that too. With a Masters Degree in Event Management and a wealth of experience in wedding and event planning – Jacinta’s definitely the girl for the job. Sometimes when you’re just starting out it’s nice to have an empathetic ear and someone looking in from the outside to help you pull all your hopes, fears, ideas and energy into the beginnings of a plan. We’re always happy to meet for a chat about your business and vision for the future and offer support and advice where we can – even if that’s just a bit of free promotion through our social media channels.

How’s business?
We can honestly say business is fabulous! We’ve hit the ground running and our portfolio of clients is already huge and growing by the day. The best bit is we’ve met such lovely people already, made new friends and built great business relationships. We’re from Cheshire and the majority of our business is in Cheshire, we love the ethos of #inittogether and have found that being friendly, open and supportive of other businesses is at the heart of our rapid growth – and being good at what we do helps too of course! To tweet or not to tweet? We love social media so we’d definitely say tweet – and post, and gram….. Some platforms suit certain types of businesses better than others, Instagram is one our favourites, it’s so visual and we love a photo opportunity but Twitter’s great too, it’s immediate and sociable and you can really connect and build a relationship with people.

Do you like to get involved with the local community?
Most definitely, we live in Altrincham and we want to see it thrive. We love to see people out and about enjoying their town, and county, and we’re always happy to get on board and support local events and organisations. Amongst others, we’ve worked with Altrincham French Festival for the last 4 years, helping with everything from event management to social media, graphics and artwork to website maintenance – I suppose we’re biased but we honestly think the family event is one of the best days out in Altrincham all year! What are you plans for the future? In some ways our plans for the future are not to change! We love the way the business has grown organically (and rapidly) by recommendation and word of mouth. It’s the best way to grow: it means clients are happy with the work we do for them, acknowledge we’re reasonably priced and flexible and adapt to each client’s individual needs, and are confident to recommend us to their friends and colleagues. We do have a few new ideas up our sleeve though of course! We’ve just introduced ClickSpace which is a unique new concept in webspace. It’s a great way a new business can dip a toe in the cyber world with a micro site with a custom URL, choice of layout, directory listing and social media promotion included in the price. They’re also great for one-off events, weddings and family celebrations too! We’re also launching BusyGirl a new, young, fun take on networking, so keep your eyes peeled for news of that!

What are your hopes for Altrincham?
We’re Cheshire born and bred, we’ve lived in Altrincham for nearly 25 years and thanks to our ice skating roots we’ve visited the town for a lot longer so we’ve seen a lot of changes. There’s a real feeling of optimism now in Altrincham - it has to be said it went through a period when it felt a little neglected but that’s changing. New businesses are opening, the town is getting its vibrancy back and we hope it will continue to grow. We enjoy being part of the renewed energy the town is experiencing and we’re looking forward to seeing some of the exciting development plans come to fruition in the next few years!

Find out more www.madeincheshire.co.uk www.busygirl.network @micheshire and @busygirlnetwork on Twitter, Instagram and Facebook