Thomas Dudley: Mark Morris on Balancing Heritage with Modern Marketing
In this episode of The Build Up, Dan chats with Mark Morris, Marketing Manager at Thomas Dudley, recorded live at The Installer Show.
Mark shares how the 110-year-old British brand continues to stay relevant through loyalty-building with plumbers, standout product innovation, and bold marketing moves — including sending their Quantum siphon into space.
They also talk agency relationships, the power of a great brief, and how Thomas Dudley uses social media and reputation to connect with merchants and end users alike.
Whether you’re in-house or agency-side, this one’s full of takeaways for anyone working in construction marketing.
Transcript
Hello and welcome to The Buildup. This is the podcast for marketing
Speaker:in the construction industry. I'm
Speaker:Dan, the creative director at Dissident. We've been working with construction brands for
Speaker:a number of years. It's an exciting and rapidly evolving industry, and
Speaker:that's why we created a podcast dedicated to the weird and wonderful world
Speaker:of construction marketing. I'll be speaking to leading brands, other agencies,
Speaker:creatives, influencers, and startups. This is the
Speaker:resource I wish we had when we first started out in the industry. Thank
Speaker:you for being here and welcome to The Builder. Welcome
Speaker:to The Buildup. I'm Dan, the creative director at Dissonant. We are a social first creative
Speaker:agency working with construction brands to create hard-hitting social media marketing
Speaker:and content. And we're live today at the Thomas Dudley stand at
Speaker:The Installer Show, and I'm joined with the marketing manager of Thomas Dudley, Mark
Speaker:Hi Dan, no worries. I'm glad to have you here on the stand. It's been a busy few
Speaker:And the stand's looking amazing, which is great. And it's packed. I don't know
Speaker:whether you can hear in the background, but it is absolutely rambo. First of all, Emma,
Speaker:Emma, can we get a little noise for Mark
Speaker:Morris, please, everybody? Woo! Yeah, Mark
Speaker:Morris! Thank you.
Speaker:Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Literally, all the dissing team
Speaker:was just looking at me, just not engaging with that at all. Thank you
Speaker:so much, guys. That's my fan club. On
Speaker:that note, can you give us an instruction to yourself, Mark, what you do and a bit about Thomas
Speaker:Yeah, I'm Mark Morris. I'm the marketing manager for Thomas Dudley Plumbing
Speaker:Products. I look after all things marketing, from
Speaker:printing a brochure right the way through to planning and executing exhibitions to
Speaker:sending products into space. So, yeah, completely Absolutely
Speaker:And in terms of Thomas Dudley, can you kind of summarize what Thomas Dudley does as
Speaker:Yeah, Thomas Dudley has been around about 110 odd years. It's
Speaker:a mixture of a few different companies, a few different
Speaker:products it makes. It owns its own foundry, which was the original business, make
Speaker:drain covers. It could also do things like cat's eyes to the
Speaker:road, pretty much anything kind of castings it'll do. And then
Speaker:we have the plumbing products division that makes anything inside and outside
Speaker:the toilet system, flush valves, siphons, brassware, anything
Speaker:like that. And then we've got another company called Rugby Plastics
Speaker:that makes things like stadium football seats, things
Speaker:like that. And WaterFit, it makes pipes under the ground. So yeah, pretty
Speaker:A real mixed bag of different stuff. I'm right in saying you guys have
Speaker:Yeah, we haven't yet. So yeah, it's one of our divisions makes
Speaker:I mean, so Thomas Dudley's an interesting one, and I suppose this can
Speaker:go for a few different brands, but there are plumbers and
Speaker:installers over the UK that are, they
Speaker:are massive Thomas Dudley fans. They are Thomas
Speaker:Dudley through and through. If there's a thing that they need to change or if there's a
Speaker:problem that they need to fix, they're going straight to Thomas Dudley. Can
Speaker:you try and extrapolate that? How does that work? And
Speaker:Our products are reliable. Well, first of all, they're made in Britain, they're made here.
Speaker:So people really put a bit of a premium on that. So, you
Speaker:know, you can buy products from abroad, you can do that. But
Speaker:a lot of our people who promise you buy our products, they
Speaker:value that and say, okay, yeah, I'm helping to support the
Speaker:British industry and the local industry as well. You know, these people, we actually
Speaker:are called Thomas Dudley and we're based in Dudley. Is
Speaker:that a happy accident, by the way? It is a happy accident, yeah. I like to think there's something
Speaker:more romantic involved in it, but there isn't. It's just, I mean, to be fair, whether the
Speaker:original owners of Walpast went, you know, that's Dudley, I'm going to settle in
Speaker:Dudley, why not? Why not? Yeah, so it is a bit of a happy coincidence. But
Speaker:when you buy one of our products, our customers know they're helping to support the
Speaker:people on the shop floor in Dudley, the local area and the wider economy.
Speaker:And also they're reliable. And if there's any
Speaker:problems, they can pick up the phone to us. You know, we're there and we answer the phone.
Speaker:It's difficult for people to, if they're struggling
Speaker:to get a hold of somebody and their customer service is terrible, that
Speaker:says a lot about a company. Our customer service always gets very high
Speaker:ratings and plumbers, merchant customers,
Speaker:That's really cool. I mean, I've had a tour of the factory a couple of times, and
Speaker:it's really, really impressive. And it's true. It
Speaker:is literally like, for a lot of businesses, you think, OK, can I have a tour
Speaker:of your factory? But it's kind of a distribution warehouse or something like that. There is
Speaker:people making stuff on machines all over the place.
Speaker:There is, yeah. Obviously, there's moldings coming
Speaker:off everywhere, whole production lines
Speaker:of people doing all sorts of intricate bits and bobs and robots and all that kind of thing.
Speaker:And we like thinking there's a family feel to it. A
Speaker:lot of that is because a lot of them are related to each other. There's parents,
Speaker:kids, there's two or three generations all working in there at the same time.
Speaker:I almost imagine, I don't think this is the case, but I always imagine like, you
Speaker:know, the sort of water mills that sprung up and then the owners would kind
Speaker:of create almost like a the surrounding areas for
Speaker:It's a bit like Bourneville, the Bourneville Trust sort of does that sort of thing, yeah. I
Speaker:think we're not quite that big but, you know, the company does an
Speaker:awful lot for its employees. You know, every Christmas it'll buy loads of pantomime
Speaker:seats at Wolverhampton Civic, sorry, Wolverhampton Grand. And,
Speaker:you know, it's done, it buys cinema tickets every week so you can
Speaker:take, you know, your family to the cinema and they'll be doing that all the time,
Speaker:you know, hundreds at a time. So it does a lot more than some
Speaker:people think a business would do. Our company does it. bigger
Speaker:and better that way. And it does it without fanfare as well. It
Speaker:just sees that that's the importance of it to do. Look after your employees
Speaker:And when it comes to acquiring new
Speaker:customers, do you think that's a generational thing? Because it's
Speaker:been around for so long, do you think it's the thing where if you've got perhaps
Speaker:an apprentice that's coming up and
Speaker:the person that they're learning from is a Thomas Dudley guy, do you think it's
Speaker:Yeah, I think so. I mean, we know in the past that, you
Speaker:know, a lot of our, you know, we did a bit of research and some of our customers
Speaker:are a bit older. So, you know, we've engaged, we've tried to
Speaker:engage, you know, I'm not exactly Mr. Young and trendy myself, but, you
Speaker:know, we tried to engage with product ambassadors who
Speaker:are social media influencers within the plumbing trade. And
Speaker:they're very big fans of Thomas Dudley. And so their enthusiasm and
Speaker:their passion comes across to the younger generation. And
Speaker:so we've gone into colleges where plumbing's been
Speaker:taught and we'll give them free product to trial
Speaker:and test. We'll give them posters and explanation guides and
Speaker:training in how the products work. Things that they wouldn't normally get, we
Speaker:go in and do. So that then helps them when they come out of a college course
Speaker:and go into the real world, they then start to recognize our products
Speaker:and that's how you continually gain that brand identity. It's
Speaker:not easy because there are lots of choice out there and
Speaker:that's why we want to try and sing the benefits of our products,
Speaker:the Made in Britain, the quality, reliability, things like that. Yeah,
Speaker:one of the worst things for a plumber is a callback. Yes. And it
Speaker:makes you that job they did was a waste of money. Yes. So they know when they put
Speaker:one of our products in there, it's not going to fail. They're not going to get called back. Yes.
Speaker:And that you can't put a price on that for a plumber because it's all about
Speaker:reputation. and you know reputational damage for a plumber because
Speaker:if one of our products fails it's the plumber's reputation that suffers. Yes.
Speaker:They might moan to us but it's their reputation that suffers. Yeah. So
Speaker:we try to do everything we can to make sure that doesn't happen because
Speaker:we understand how the reputation for
Speaker:Absolutely. Yeah, that's massive. And obviously, if that suffers, they're going to start thinking,
Speaker:Yeah, that's exactly it. And you know, we don't want that. So we will
Speaker:Yeah. Wicked. I love that. It's a really cool story. Thomas
Speaker:Dudley, then in terms of marketing, you're the marketing manager. Is there something
Speaker:that you guys are doing? This kind of interesting and unique
Speaker:to not necessarily unique, but More unique compared to
Speaker:your competitors like what are the kind of things that you guys are doing? That's kind
Speaker:of a bit different or at least it's working well,
Speaker:We try to make sure that we keep changing every year. And there's that joke of
Speaker:someone saying, I've been in the job 20 years, I've got 20 years experience. Someone said, no, you've
Speaker:got one year experience, you've repeated 20 times. We
Speaker:try to make sure we don't do that. We're always looking for what's new, what's
Speaker:coming along next, what can we engage with? Which is why we talk
Speaker:to companies like yourselves, so we can say, okay, what's
Speaker:new and on the horizon, what's going to keep us looking fresh? So we don't
Speaker:just repeat, repeat, repeat. It's okay, let's do something different. When
Speaker:we come to this installer show, we try and do something different. How
Speaker:do we engage with our customers in a different way than we did last year?
Speaker:So that helps keep us fresh in the minds and people think, oh, they're continually moving
Speaker:That wasn't me just fishing by the way for like a shout out
Speaker:to Dissident for doing all their cool videos and stuff like that. I just
Speaker:want to put that out there. That was of his own volition. When
Speaker:it comes to things like social media, actually let's take it a
Speaker:further step back. Because you're the marketing manager, obviously managers
Speaker:manage people and manage processes and situations and stuff
Speaker:like that. What kind of stuff have you guys brought in in terms of people,
Speaker:channels, news, obviously you're doing crazy stuff at
Speaker:the Installer Show and things like that. What kind of stuff have you brought in as a marketing manager
Speaker:Well, when I first came in, we used Trello,
Speaker:it's really well known. It helps us manage all our activities. And all
Speaker:of our team members, we know where we are and what we're working on. So
Speaker:we can all jump in and out of each other's work if we need to. So that helps
Speaker:keep things sort of moving so we don't stop. And
Speaker:it's all about making sure you finish projects. It's all important
Speaker:because there's a lot of great starters out there
Speaker:who will start something off, get bored, and then give up on it.
Speaker:Yeah, I know some starters. Look at him, he's not
Speaker:even paying attention. Look at him. Don't matter, don't matter. I
Speaker:But for us, we can't afford to do that. We have got
Speaker:to make sure that we finish everything that we start. Yes. And
Speaker:that helps keep our reputation as a department that delivers going.
Speaker:And we've just got to keep moving. And where can
Speaker:we engage differently? Where can we bring
Speaker:our influence on things? keeping the brand identity tight,
Speaker:moving things. It's all about trying to stay fresh in a
Speaker:world where trends move very fast.
Speaker:What social media channel should we engage with? What
Speaker:messages are out there? And it's difficult, it's a continual job.
Speaker:I mean, I hosted some podcasts that you guys put on for us,
Speaker:and I never hosted a podcast before. Which you did very well, by the
Speaker:way. I've got a lot of respect now for people who host podcasts. You
Speaker:know, waiting for a conversation and looking like he's going to die off
Speaker:and knowing when to jump in and keep it moving. That's an art unto itself. It's
Speaker:almost like being a disco DJ or something like that. I
Speaker:never really appreciated that. But now you think, wow, that's a tough job, tough
Speaker:gig. And, you know, even social media influences, you know, OK,
Speaker:we all sort of love and turn on, you know, roll our eyes a little bit. That's
Speaker:a full-time job to keep that moving and keep it all fresh and new.
Speaker:So even within a marketing that's with a business-to-business, you've
Speaker:got to keep that moving fresh, you've got to keep the new content coming, you've
Speaker:got to look at what social media channels, what communication channels you're going
Speaker:to use, and you don't forget the ones that work. Email marketing is a
Speaker:great tool and it works really well in the business-to-business world. So,
Speaker:you can't ignore that while you're looking at something else. So, it's all about
Speaker:Absolutely. So, when it comes to things like social media,
Speaker:which is kind of like the stuff that we're always interested in.
Speaker:Obviously, that's only one sort of channel in a
Speaker:series of other channels of marketing. When it comes to social media, I'm
Speaker:always interested because you guys sell purely through distribution, am I right? Pretty
Speaker:much, yeah. Not a great deal straight to consumer. How
Speaker:do you split your marketing efforts and do you do that sort of
Speaker:by channel? Because I imagine you're marketing to an end user in
Speaker:the hopes that they go to one of your retailers and buy a product and then you're hoping to
Speaker:It's all about push and pull. We want to influence the plumber
Speaker:at the other end to walk into a merchant and ask for our product. We
Speaker:also then want to push that products through to the merchants so that they'll stock it
Speaker:on the shelves. So it'd be
Speaker:great if we could just advertise the business to consumers,
Speaker:because we've just got one market to influence within a broader market. But
Speaker:we've actually got two very distinct ones, because a consumer or
Speaker:a plumber in this instance or an installer, their needs and wants are very
Speaker:different to what a merchant's needs and wants are, so we've got to make sure
Speaker:we tailor our messages to the merchants in a very different way
Speaker:than we tailor it to the end-user plumbers or DIYers, so
Speaker:split that by platforms. So let's say things like TikTok
Speaker:and Instagram, they're probably going to go to your retailers
Speaker:and stuff at some stage, aren't they? But I imagine you're focusing more on the end
Speaker:user and engaging with those guys. Things like LinkedIn and stuff, do you have
Speaker:We look at LinkedIn as a bit more detailed, so we carry
Speaker:a lot longer posts, a lot of different type of messages, whereas on social media,
Speaker:short and sharp. Short, sharp, and repeat, repeat, repeat. Especially if you're looking
Speaker:at something like Twitter, for instance, you might send a tweet out,
Speaker:but sending it once ain't really going to benefit you. You're going to have to send
Speaker:it three or four times, so you can schedule it to go so
Speaker:that it just continues. People will hit the message at some point, Because
Speaker:it comes off your feed very fast. And I think I saw a stat somewhere that you've
Speaker:got 0.2 of a second to catch somebody scrolling. Yeah.
Speaker:So someone's scrolling for social media, 0.2 of a second to catch their interest or
Speaker:they'll scroll past. You've got to get your hook spot on. And that's why, I mean, when
Speaker:you're tailoring a message or a video or whatever it might be,
Speaker:it's very different on social media knowing that they're scrolling than it is if you're
Speaker:doing something maybe on a longer one on LinkedIn that
Speaker:people are going to stop and look at. Because when they're scrolling through on
Speaker:either YouTube Shorts or whatever it might be, you've
Speaker:got to get, almost tell the entire story in less than like
Speaker:0.2 of a second. And that's very hard. Just
Speaker:something different. How am I going to stop someone scrolling past? Because we all do it,
Speaker:we all scroll, scroll, scroll. Oh, that's interesting, what was that? No, scroll. The
Speaker:video works really well for that, but it's got to be, you know, that
Speaker:initial little bit of a second you've got has got to be really
Speaker:Yeah, you can't sort of start it on like a title screen or something like that,
Speaker:you know what I mean? You go straight into it. Yeah, the days of
Speaker:kind of like slow and steady films on social media. Some
Speaker:of them will work, obviously, but it kind of depends on your platform, not your brand and stuff
Speaker:like that. So talk about how you guys do
Speaker:stuff a little bit differently. Everyone's got their own kind of unique flavor
Speaker:and approach to marketing. And again, it's always changing, isn't it? It's always
Speaker:developing. But you guys did something really cool recently and
Speaker:something that I hadn't really seen before, certainly in this industry, where
Speaker:you sent one of your products off into space. Yeah, we did. Can you talk
Speaker:I've been wanting to send someone into space for quite a while. I get to
Speaker:be very excited. I'm always a big space nerd, really. Well,
Speaker:our new product, the Quantum, it actually looks a bit like a rocket. Yeah, it does. I
Speaker:spoke to the board and said, look, we've got a great product
Speaker:here. We think we can send it up into space. It looks like a rocket. And
Speaker:then we could get some good marketing out of it. And they're all like, oh, cool. That's
Speaker:a great idea. So we contacted the company out there who does
Speaker:it all, because obviously they've got to get permission from air traffic control, all
Speaker:that kind of stuff, because it goes up very high. And yeah, so
Speaker:they built a little mini capsule for it, sent it up and then chased it down and
Speaker:got it back. Amazing. So yeah, some of the footage, which I'm sure you
Speaker:probably had seen, it just looked absolutely stunning. Looks wicked. Yeah, see
Speaker:our quantum against the curve of the Earth. Just something else
Speaker:that is. And how they do it, is it just a massive balloon? It's
Speaker:not a massive balloon because it's filled with, I think it's helium maybe,
Speaker:I'm not 100% sure. So it starts off small and as it goes up into the
Speaker:atmosphere, it gets bigger and bigger and bigger because of the pressure changes
Speaker:and how that gas works under low
Speaker:pressure. Until it gets to a point where it's so big it bursts. And
Speaker:then when it bursts, it comes down on a parachute. Wicked. So yeah,
Speaker:so it gets to about 125,000 feet. A jet
Speaker:will fly at about 40,000 max. Yes. So you're looking at
Speaker:three times as high as you fly when you're going on holiday. And
Speaker:that's how high up it goes. That's nice. How long does it take to actually get up there? It's
Speaker:about two or three hours only total to come back down. So we
Speaker:launched it from Derbyshire and it came down in Lincolnshire. So
Speaker:they have a chase team that follows it around with a GPS in
Speaker:the car and they follow it around and then they can dig it out of the farmer's field. So
Speaker:we got the footage of it landing in this farmer's field and obviously they would
Speaker:then chase it around and go climb over some fences and get it back. Derbyshire to
Speaker:Lincolnshire is a fair old trek as well, isn't it? It is, yeah, two and a half hours. Yeah,
Speaker:That's absolutely mad. But it was exciting and I loved every second of
Speaker:it. Yeah, and so that was a project that was just like got your
Speaker:And no one else has done it. Other companies like, you know, Barbie
Speaker:have sent one of theirs up, you know, I think there's a whiskey company sent theirs up, but no
Speaker:one in this industry has done it. So again, we're the first, we're groundbreakers, you
Speaker:know, and that's what we want to be, you know, keep innovating. And that
Speaker:No, we're going to launch it after the show, so yeah, so this is a bit of a sneak preview
Speaker:of it really. Yeah, well we'll be editing this probably after the launch of
Speaker:that, so we'll see what that looks like. If you haven't seen
Speaker:it, go and check it out. It's almost totally, get them all on socials and you'll see the
Speaker:quantum going up into space. Yeah, it looks amazing. Yeah. And
Speaker:then another thing which is kind of like slightly off script, you
Speaker:know, you guys are really, really pushing for water saving,
Speaker:so as well as trying to promote your products. And obviously, pretty much
Speaker:any brand, if they've got some messaging, it's usually because they've
Speaker:got our products which can help in this kind of situation. But can you talk us through kind
Speaker:of like the saving water kind of thing that you guys have been up
Speaker:It is, yeah. I mean, prior to about 2001, every
Speaker:toilet had to be fitted with a siphon. And siphons, by design, don't leak.
Speaker:So after 2001 they tried, the government legislated that they
Speaker:wanted to be more like Europe. So for the first time ever, they let flush valves
Speaker:into the country. And flush vials by their design leak
Speaker:after a bit of time. The seal gets all gummed up
Speaker:or whatever it might be, it will leak. And the
Speaker:government knew this when they brought this change in legislation in. But
Speaker:their logic was that people would get the toilet fixed, there wouldn't be that much of a problem. But
Speaker:people are people and that doesn't generally happen. So now the
Speaker:stats say anywhere between one and a half and two million toilets are leaking in
Speaker:the UK every day. Now that's enough water, fresh
Speaker:drinking water, going down the toilet to fill about
Speaker:4 million baths of water every day. Now we talk about a water shortage.
Speaker:If everybody was to switch back to a siphon, you would save 4 million
Speaker:bathfuls of water every single day in lost
Speaker:And that certainly helped towards the hosepipe bans, when
Speaker:If you think about some of the areas in the country that are already in drought conditions, and
Speaker:they've all got leaking toilets in those areas, and they're wasting water. Yeah,
Speaker:it's just, I mean, it's a no-brainer of a problem
Speaker:solve. So, you know, what we found is
Speaker:a lot of people don't really know the difference. You
Speaker:wouldn't know whether your toilet had a valve or a siphon in it. So,
Speaker:just a quick one. If you walk up to it and there's a handle, it'll be a siphon. Yes.
Speaker:If it's a button, it'll be a valve. Okay. Now, over time, people
Speaker:have actually liked the idea of having a button because it
Speaker:looks nice and you can put it where you want, which would mean that they're going to have a valve.
Speaker:Okay. To get over that problem of
Speaker:the leaking valve with a button, the company spent about
Speaker:15 years developing the Quantum because it's trying to get the technology right
Speaker:in this product. So it's basically a siphon that can be
Speaker:activated by pressing a button. Amazing. All new technology so
Speaker:that it gives the leak-free benefits of a siphon with
Speaker:the aesthetically pleasing elements of yes, you can have a button. And
Speaker:so we're developing further models as we go along in order
Speaker:to make it better as you do. Yeah. But yeah, if everyone
Speaker:was to switch over to a quantum with a button, yeah, you'd
Speaker:say again, you'd say this problem, you still have a nice button, and you would save all that
Speaker:And so I mean, first of all, really, really clever product
Speaker:design, because you've got a situation where you've got a lot of people that want a
Speaker:button. But they don't care. They just want the button
Speaker:to flush. They don't know. Most people don't care what's
Speaker:I have no idea. It does what it
Speaker:Well, you guys have come out with a product which allows them
Speaker:to have a toilet with a push button. If they
Speaker:prefer that as opposed to a handle, then
Speaker:that's great. But you guys can... educate
Speaker:the plumbers who are installing those, if they are, because
Speaker:they can be like, well this is the one to go for, because you don't have any problems
Speaker:with this for years, as opposed to a valve where potentially
Speaker:It could, yeah, I mean and it will, all valves will leak over time,
Speaker:whether it's tomorrow, next day, in a year's time, but it will leak over time.
Speaker:And, you know, overall, some people are a bit lazy, it's leaking
Speaker:a little bit down the back of the toilet, you might not notice it in the start, and it just gets worse
Speaker:and worse and worse as it goes. And it's like, as one
Speaker:of our friends said one day, you wouldn't leave a tap running all day, so
Speaker:why would you leave your toilet running all day? Yeah, and that's
Speaker:And the thing is, it probably is a big thing for a lot of people, it's like out of sight,
Speaker:Well, if you think about it in the past, they used to have the out... because a lot of the products now,
Speaker:like the valves and stuff, have an internal overflow. Yes. So
Speaker:it leaks down into the toilet. Previously, we
Speaker:used to have the out feed, it used to go outside the house. Yes. So if the toilet was leaking like
Speaker:that, it was overfilling, for instance, it would leak outside the house and down your wall. Yeah. And
Speaker:that would stain your wall and you would see it and go, I need to get that fixed. Yes. Because
Speaker:it's leaking down inside the toilet, you don't notice it for a while, and
Speaker:then you do notice it, and you're probably getting it fixed when
Speaker:you're getting something else fixed. You might have a dodgy tap, and they might get
Speaker:the plumber out to it and say, oh, while you're there, go and have a look at the toilets. As
Speaker:Yeah, whatever. Yeah, it still works. Yeah, I'll sort that out at some point. Yeah,
Speaker:I'll get done. Yeah. And it's not it's not a necessity. So you so you
Speaker:guys, you created a product, which solves that problem.
Speaker:Yeah, both problems if you can have you can have a product which
Speaker:doesn't leak, which is a siphon also still continue to have the
Speaker:toilet that you prefer, which has got like a pushy button type thing. Exactly right. And
Speaker:so the but then the marketing messaging kind of like throughout that
Speaker:is was water So you're buying this product, not only is it a
Speaker:cool product, you get to do all the stuff you want to do with your bathroom, but you're also
Speaker:Yeah, that's it. Save water, save life. You know, I mean, we all need
Speaker:it. Yeah. You know, and we are running, you know, we're running out in places and
Speaker:we don't want to go into drought. So it's a very simple fix. Yes. If
Speaker:everybody woke up tomorrow morning and went, you know what, I'm going to change out
Speaker:my valve for a siphon and I'll just have a handle for now, you'll
Speaker:I love it. So how have you pushed that message across?
Speaker:For the audience, we know how you guys have been doing all sorts of different things
Speaker:within your marketing to push water savings and stuff. What's
Speaker:Yeah, I mean, we get a lot of feedback. We just recently launched a new video, which you guys helped
Speaker:us do, which really sort of put a lot of the stats together. Yeah,
Speaker:educated the audience. Yes, and it's all about helping. This is how you can fix it. This is
Speaker:how you can tell if your toilet's leaking. This is how much is leaking. You know, we
Speaker:continually talk to me. Sometimes it's like pushing water
Speaker:a bill in some places because... Water's relatively
Speaker:cheap in this country, although it's starting to become more expensive. The
Speaker:more expensive it becomes, the more people are more interested in stopping
Speaker:the leaks. It's like the price of milk. When that goes up, you go, oh, OK, I'm starting to
Speaker:realize this. And it's like petrol, isn't it? When petrol gets so high, you start to
Speaker:change the way that you drive a little bit and think, OK, I'm not going to drive
Speaker:it unless you make it flat out all the time. So I'm going to try
Speaker:to be a little bit more economical with what I'm doing. And that's what
Speaker:Well, you know, probably will happen with water because the price is only
Speaker:going to go one way. Nothing ever goes down in price. So,
Speaker:you know, you might be paying, say, X amount per litre of water at
Speaker:the moment, probably be doubled in the next few years. And if you
Speaker:look at the investment people that the government's talking about, you know, new reservoirs here
Speaker:and there, that's all going to have to be paid for either through direct or indirect taxes. Yes.
Speaker:Absolutely. So going
Speaker:on from that, you guys are doing a great job of promoting water
Speaker:savings through your communication and stuff like that. How are you
Speaker:guys driving traffic towards Thomas Dudley? Can you
Speaker:give us an overview of the channels and
Speaker:the methods to get people talking or interested or seeing Thomas
Speaker:We use various ones. If you look at all the marketing tools
Speaker:that are available to us, we try and have a bit of a... marketing
Speaker:speak now, a bit of a through the line sort of strategy where
Speaker:social media for the mass market. We've used radio advertising
Speaker:in the past, but not necessarily, or works for us all the time. Email
Speaker:marketing in the business to business world is a very strong tool for us,
Speaker:so we use that quite a lot. We break our
Speaker:email marketing down into certain target audiences, then
Speaker:tailor the messages around those, and then we might send them through what
Speaker:we use to call a nurture. You know, you might write
Speaker:an email and you might send it through to a thousand people. And
Speaker:then you'll then set it so that if they don't open it, they might get
Speaker:it again in five days. If they don't open it, they'll get it again and again until you
Speaker:reach a certain point where you think, well, they're really not interested in this. And
Speaker:if they do open it, you might send them down another nurture that says, okay, you opened this,
Speaker:you were clearly interested in that link, so I'm going to send you a little bit more information on
Speaker:this product. And that's all set up automatically. So we build these, and
Speaker:then we can actually let them get on with it and do it. And then we monitor the results, and then we
Speaker:tweak and tailor to make sure we get the messages right. Similar
Speaker:to social media, we use a lot of Facebook advertising just
Speaker:to try and get in front of people. We're all
Speaker:looking at our AdWords. So we use a little bit of AdWords, but not too much.
Speaker:We're getting our SEO right on the websites. Yeah,
Speaker:which is a black magic, isn't it? It is. Yeah, I mean Google changes these algorithms all
Speaker:the time So you've got a website that ranks highly and all of a sudden it doesn't anymore
Speaker:You get penalized for something that you didn't realize you weren't supposed to do It
Speaker:doesn't like double pages and like this it doesn't like that and you
Speaker:know And I think they do it on purpose to try and encourage you to actually make some changes and
Speaker:do something So yeah, so you've always got to be constantly looking at those we
Speaker:did direct mail So it might sound old-fashioned, but we still send stuff
Speaker:out in the post. I love a lumpy mail Yeah, we do brochures, so we
Speaker:try to do a lot of the tools to hit and obviously with that,
Speaker:you know, you've got the however many P's there are now in your marketing mix
Speaker:anymore, you know, public relations is one, you
Speaker:know, you've always got to try and look at how do we interact with our
Speaker:customers a bit more, you know, your reputation, you know, if that gets
Speaker:damaged, you know, that can almost no way back for that for some time.
Speaker:We're constantly looking at how you can engage with different people. We use
Speaker:a team of ambassadors who are all social media influencers, who
Speaker:have an audience of their own. We only
Speaker:want ambassadors who actually believe and use our products. The
Speaker:right avatars for the brand. We don't want to pay or have anybody
Speaker:on board that is doing it just because they want to earn a
Speaker:little bit of money. That's no good to us because they'll do it for anybody. People
Speaker:come to us and say, look, I only use your products. I'll only ever use
Speaker:your products. I'm really a big believer in Thomas Dudley.
Speaker:They're the kind of people that we want as our ambassadors. And that's
Speaker:the type of ambassadors that we've got. and people
Speaker:can feel their enthusiasm come through. And that says an
Speaker:awful lot that someone is willing to stake their reputation on
Speaker:our products. And that says a lot about them, it says a lot about us as well,
Speaker:That's massive, yeah. It's huge that when you're on the
Speaker:ambassador side of things that these people, and because you can tell when
Speaker:they're genuine fans, can't you? They're so
Speaker:passionate about the products, about the brand. And the thing
Speaker:about brands and
Speaker:businesses and products and stuff like that. Up
Speaker:to a certain point, we as business owners
Speaker:and people who work behind the scenes and stuff, we'll know
Speaker:that our product is better than a competitor's. We know the stats and
Speaker:we know all the figures and we know that this is made better, we know that it's made in the
Speaker:UK and stuff like that. Up to a certain point, The customer
Speaker:Yeah, it's all about using the tools correctly. And we
Speaker:know that our products aren't the cheapest on the market, but
Speaker:we believe they're the best. Yes. But that's not to say that there aren't other
Speaker:products out there that are good. Yes. I'm not going to knock any of our competitors' products
Speaker:that they do a job. Yeah. So all we're interested in
Speaker:is seeing the benefits of ours. Yes. You want to buy our product because all
Speaker:the strengths we'll put against it, it's reliability, it's quality build. you're
Speaker:made in Britain, all those elements that will take you so far. But you're right, if
Speaker:you push the price up too high, people will start not to trust the
Speaker:value of it. But in the same way, you can't be cheap in
Speaker:a market. If you're promoting the quality and the reputation and the reliability of
Speaker:a product, you can't then turn around and say it's cheap. Because
Speaker:people won't trust that either. People are smart. It's psychological, isn't
Speaker:it? You're looking and saying, well, you're telling me it's got this, this, this, and this, but it's
Speaker:only a quid. I know what I'm going to get for that. People
Speaker:aren't stupid, they understand what that means. We
Speaker:talk about the quality of our products and that has a little bit
Speaker:of a premium attached to it. If you want to support the British industries,
Speaker:you want to support the British workforce, then
Speaker:there is a little bit of a price comparison because we treat
Speaker:our employees well. We have certain regulations that we have to
Speaker:come up against, whether it's environmental, whether it's
Speaker:British standards, whatever it might be. If you're buying a product that comes from
Speaker:China, it might be an okay product, but
Speaker:you don't know how the employees have been treated, where they're
Speaker:making it. You don't know how old they are, whether they're using child labor, whatever it
Speaker:might be. Cutting corners, whatever. Yeah, and we've
Speaker:all seen some real shoddy practices in countries abroad,
Speaker:and that's what you've got to think about as well. You're not just buying a
Speaker:product. Do you know where it comes from? Yeah. How did it get here?
Speaker:How old was any child labor? You know, you could have been fitting a product that
Speaker:was made by a five-year-old. Yeah. No, you just don't know. But
Speaker:You know what that means. And that's part of your brand, right? You know, it's
Speaker:literally in the colors, you know, the Union Jack. It's
Speaker:all part of that brand. And, you know, as I mentioned, People
Speaker:expect a product to work regardless, don't they? After
Speaker:a certain point, you pay X amount of money, I expect this to be of a certain quality.
Speaker:It's interesting because if you take Ryanair as an example, the service you
Speaker:get from Ryanair isn't actually bad, but you go into it
Speaker:expecting it to be terrible. and then people get off the plane the
Speaker:other end and go you know what that wasn't so bad they exceeded your
Speaker:expectations yeah because in your mind you're thinking i'll
Speaker:be lucky if i get a seat on this plane because you know i'll be standing up because that's
Speaker:what in your mind that's what Ryanair's like you know but actually their
Speaker:service isn't that bad. And it's comparable on
Speaker:the budget that you pay. So, their reputation is
Speaker:it's terrible, but most of the people's interactions with it is actually pretty
Speaker:good. And that's how, that's the power of suggestive marketing,
Speaker:what it is. You know, Ryanair in the mines is cheap, and
Speaker:you know, that's why you're moaning about going, why is my bag too big, is the millimetre too
Speaker:wide, all this sort of deal. So they can keep their prices down. But actually
Speaker:when you're on the plane, you're still getting to where you're going, and
Speaker:you've still got the same qualified Pilot and the maintenance is still the
Speaker:same and the planes still in the good condition. So yeah, it's
Speaker:all about how that actually works So, you know, we will tell you
Speaker:that our products aren't the cheapest Yeah, and you know, we'll tell you why yeah, and
Speaker:it comes down to the mind of the the customers in the end It's not buying car
Speaker:insurance, isn't it? Yes, some people there'll be a portion of the public that will always buy
Speaker:the cheapest car insurance that they can find Then there'll be
Speaker:the portions of people at the very end who don't mind spending ridiculous money because they
Speaker:can afford it. Most of us settle in the middle. Yeah, like watch
Speaker:the cat shift. With the cheapest ones it's just like, am I actually going to get insured here? I don't trust that, yeah.
Speaker:Or will they be there when I need them? That's the only time you know if your insurance is
Speaker:any good, is if it's there when you need it. And that's
Speaker:when you realize, you know, that wasn't worth the money, you know, because it was actually a terrible service
Speaker:or whatever, you know. So, you know, brands have brand
Speaker:strength for a reason. And usually that's reputation that will follow that
Speaker:around. And, you know, you can see around here
Speaker:where we've got all our, you know, some of our customer feedback, you know, how good
Speaker:Yeah, that's it. I mean, it's the strength of the brand, it's the
Speaker:strength of the reputation. That's what will bring
Speaker:a brand through. Even if they're competing against somebody who's
Speaker:got a very similar product, a very similar price point, brand
Speaker:That's why you've got to keep pushing. We've got to keep building the Thomas Dudley
Speaker:brand. Let people know what it means. Because, you know, does
Speaker:everybody know what we do? No. It's our job to keep educating people.
Speaker:This is what Thomas Dudley means. This is what you get from us. This is
Speaker:why it costs that. This is the benefits of doing it. And that's
Speaker:what we've got to keep doing. Love it. So I'm looking over there, I'm seeing people messing
Speaker:Someone's broken the quantum. That's the one that went into space, leave it alone. That's
Speaker:the unbreakable quantum. Yeah, it's been in space and he's taken it
Speaker:apart. One final
Speaker:question for you, Mark, before we wrap it up because I'm sure you've got lots of stuff to do because we
Speaker:are mid-show. Any last words of wisdom for the
Speaker:audience when it comes to marketing? Anything that I haven't asked
Speaker:Always have a plan in mind of what you're doing and I'll
Speaker:say this, the most important thing you can do, especially, I mean,
Speaker:dealing with a company like yourselves, I'll say this. Great agencies and
Speaker:stuff, Kieran. Agencies, yeah. You need
Speaker:to have a very good brief. Yes. If you haven't got a brief written
Speaker:out, what you want to achieve out of something, before you
Speaker:know it, you're very good at not doing this, is that the costs
Speaker:will skyrocket out of control and the project will go off in so many
Speaker:different directions that you will not be able to control it. Always write
Speaker:a very good brief at the beginning. Let your
Speaker:creative people operate within that box that you're writing out, but give them
Speaker:an overall, this is what I want to achieve, this is roughly how
Speaker:much money I've got to spend, and these are the deliverables that I
Speaker:would like out of this. and then you come to an agreement. My
Speaker:job is to manage that brief, manage the agencies through it,
Speaker:and again, always be honest with the
Speaker:agency. If you're working with agencies, and even if you've got designers in-house, always
Speaker:be honest with them. I'll talk to the agencies in a way that,
Speaker:you know, and I'll say to people at the beginning, this is what I'm good at and let people know.
Speaker:If you're expecting me to come back on time every time with information, you're going to be sorely
Speaker:disappointed. So you're going to need to bug me and hassle me
Speaker:and harass me and feel free to do that in any way, shape or
Speaker:form that you see fit, because that's how I respond to
Speaker:things. So I'm honest and I'll tell people I'm good at this and I'm terrible at that.
Speaker:And that's what you've got to be with an agency or your own team. You've
Speaker:got to be honest with them. Set the expectations. So that when you write a brief out,
Speaker:you all know what you're working towards and you know what you're
Speaker:going to deliver and when you're going to deliver it. Otherwise... The
Speaker:cost will go through the roof. You'll end up doing about 10 different drafts of
Speaker:whatever you wanted, and then nobody will be happy, and
Speaker:then everyone will point the fingers and blame everybody else for it. But
Speaker:it all starts from the very beginning. Your job, as in my job,
Speaker:is to write a very good brief about what I want. I'm not a designer. I
Speaker:don't design things. If I had to design something, it would look like
Speaker:a dog's dinner. But I'm very good at writing a brief of what I want,
Speaker:and I'll have ideas of what I want. And that's, if I was going to give a
Speaker:bit of advice to anybody is, know what a
Speaker:brief looks like and write it out. Some people write a brief literally
Speaker:on the back of that and say, that's my brief. A video. Yeah.
Speaker:Can you promote my business? That's what I want you to do. I've got the video. I've
Speaker:wrote a little bit on there. It's not good enough. Nah. Take
Speaker:a little bit of time, get the brief right, and you won't
Speaker:I love that. It's really refreshing to hear because there are
Speaker:certain situations, and a lot of time can be saved in
Speaker:the creative process and in marketing just by setting the
Speaker:goals outright, getting on the right page. As
Speaker:a creative agency and as creatives, We don't really like guesswork.
Speaker:We want freedom within a certain area of the
Speaker:creative process because that's important to us. We don't want to be just button pushers.
Speaker:But when we have to guess stuff, because
Speaker:we're all ADHD and we've all got all sorts of situations
Speaker:where we just hesitate and all that kind of thing, it makes the
Speaker:creative process really, really difficult. So if you just set, this
Speaker:is what I want to achieve, this is who it's for, this is the budget,
Speaker:this is where it's going to go, these are the deliverables. which is a really good
Speaker:I mean, whenever I deal with an agent and I said the same thing to yourselves and
Speaker:I will I'll talk an honest one and I'll say you be honest
Speaker:with me I'll be honest with you and you can you want to call me a swear word
Speaker:because I'm not doing what you want then you'd feel free to do that and have that kind
Speaker:of relationship where you're not going to be offended by each other. Yes. Because at some point
Speaker:I'm gonna have to tell you I'm not happy with what you've done. Yeah.
Speaker:And creatives You know who you are. They
Speaker:get very offended when you criticize their work.
Speaker:They forget, some creators forget, that actually I'm paying for
Speaker:this, so I'll get what I want. Because creators think
Speaker:they know best. So I'll always say, look, at some point,
Speaker:and it happens to every agency, I'm going to have to tell you I'm not happy with what you've done, because
Speaker:it's not good enough, or you've gone down a hole that wasn't there. So
Speaker:you've got to have that level of honesty with them. And
Speaker:that's why having a brief at the beginning helps, but just be
Speaker:completely honest with your agency. Otherwise, you'll get something
Speaker:you don't want and then the agency won't be happy because you just
Speaker:won't use them again. And I
Speaker:won't be happy because I won't get the results I want. My boss won't be happy because I spent money
Speaker:and not delivered anything. And one good example, if you haven't seen
Speaker:it, go and look on our YouTube channel, our water saving video. you
Speaker:guys did that we wrote a brief and we said you can operate within that
Speaker:this is what we'd like to achieve these are the stats we'd like you to cover you
Speaker:guys took that away and delivered on time first time exactly
Speaker:what we wanted no no reshoots yeah
Speaker:no reshoots no redoing it again perfect first time yeah
Speaker:and that was an absolutely fantastic result we had a tight timeline for that
Speaker:yes And it was delivered on time, actually early, everything
Speaker:that we wanted. And that came through the honest communication with each other
Speaker:and the briefing at the beginning of what we wanted to achieve. And
Speaker:that's my word of advice. And that gets overlooked because in
Speaker:the marketing courses I've done, I've done chart of industry marketing, they don't teach you
Speaker:how to write a brief. No, it's mad, isn't it? Teach you how to do lots of things, but
Speaker:they don't teach you how to write a brief at agency. But it's the one thing that
Speaker:Yeah, absolutely. I think that's absolutely massive. And it's
Speaker:a great point to end on. You know, I think Brief, Ryan,
Speaker:super important. But also, I think you mentioned there, like just the relationships, having a
Speaker:great relationship, having a great line of communication, not bullying or
Speaker:scaring agencies or vice versa, into feeling
Speaker:like they can't ask questions, like they can't have
Speaker:Not every idea that I have is going to be the best idea. I mean, of course,
Speaker:99.99% of the time my idea is going to be the best. Absolutely. But
Speaker:you have to be ready for that criticism to say, I
Speaker:don't think that's going to work, or we think that's going to work better. And never
Speaker:be afraid to take the advice of the people that you're paying the advice
Speaker:for. They're the experts in the end, not you. Not
Speaker:It's one of those, isn't it? When you're a party of one, in
Speaker:your head, thinking about a thing, and you go, this is definitely going to work.
Speaker:But then actually, when you bring that to a team, and you go, I like that,
Speaker:but you've probably not considered this, because you've been blind
Speaker:as I am. Because you're like, I can't wait to do this thing. That's it, yeah. Have
Speaker:you thought about this? And you can make some tweaks and changes, and you can actually
Speaker:do what you want to do, but make it successful. Mark, thank you
Speaker:so much, first of all for being on the build-up, but also for hosting
Speaker:the build-up. There's a bar just
Speaker:over there that's serving drinks, so that's why it's getting pretty lively
Speaker:now. Thank you so much, I appreciate it. No worries, really
