Business East Midlands, January 2002

LINCOLNSHIRE LEADS WITH THE E-SAUSAGE

Entrepreneurial Lincolnshire butcher Ian Cocking of Leanings in Tealby, recently launched his own e-commerce web site www.vikingsausages.co.uk in an attempt to fight the decline of the village shop and help his 'Viking Sausages' to reach a wider audience. Leanings is probably the smallest butchers shop in the country to boast a fully secure e-commerce web site, enabling customers to order confidently online and look forward to tucking into bangers for breakfast the very next day.
Ian, a sole trader and native of Lincolnshire, came up with the idea of launching his sausages online over a year ago when he noticed visitors to Tealby were phoning him to request special deliveries from as far a field as Scotland and London.
"Tealby sausages have built up quite a reputation locally," says Ian. "They are one of the most popular choices on both of the Tealby pubs menus and a staple of the Tealby Summer Fete. Customers have been calling-in on Leanings from Caistor, Grimsby, Lincoln, Brigg and Scunthorpe for their sausages for years, so I wanted those from further afield to enjoy them, which is why I thought of a web site."
"To be honest I didn't have a clue where to start with a web site" confides Ian, "Luckily for me, some of my friends run a design agency in the village and have been designing web sites for major household names for about 4 years. Aydon and Rob gave me all the options and advice I needed to decide what type of site to have, without any baffling jargon. They also own their own server, so they were able to organise my domain name, secure web space and experienced creative design."
Ian's choice of web site design agency, City Graphics Partnership bought a derelict Grade II chapel in Tealby about 5 years ago and converted it into a state of the art design studio picking up a Rural Design award in 1997. Aydon Aspin, Creative Director, began work on Ian's project by creating a corporate identity for the site. The shop, B. Leaning and Sons is situated at 26 Front Street Tealby, right next to the Viking Way, the ancient footpath from the Humber to the Wash, so 'Viking Sausages' was an obvious choice of name for the web site.
"Just like a catalogue or corporate brochure, a web site can be a simple or as complicated as you want to make it" says Aydon who founded City Graphics Partnership in 1989. "It's very like direct mail as a medium, which is why it was the natural progression for us as designers. The outer envelope becomes the home page, you have seconds to make someone tear it open. The same applies to a home page, so fast-loading time and message is vital."
"With Viking Sausages we began by giving Ian a series of options from a simple 'Home Page' which acts as an online ad with an email link and contact details, to a 5 or 6 page site with a little more 'meat', right through to the full e-commerce site he chose with secure online ordering and 'added value extras' like recipe pages, customer testimonials and 'e-postcards' to spread the word about Viking Sausages."
"I was grateful to be guided through the process," explains Ian. Initially Ian was presented with basic sketched 'pages' that explained the navigation structure and look of the site, without having to commit to costly programming. Aydon used Ian's collection of historic photographs and more recent shots donated by Lincolnshire County Council that have appeared in the county's tourist guide. He suggested a line art illustration of the shop to convey its authenticity and history which was drawn by Ian's artistic sister-in-law.
"Where new photography was required I was also able to call on the help of another friend" smiles Ian, who in his spare time is lead singer and guitarist in local rock band The Zimmers with acclaimed national freelance photographer Mike Powell, who also lives in Tealby. "Mike shoots for the Times and has won arts photographer of the year on more than one occasion, so I'm really fortune to have his expertise on hand. I'm sure like many Lincolnshire SMEs, I don't even have a budget for advertising let alone professional photography or copywriting!"
So when it came to preparing the copy for his site Ian jotted down some basic ideas about how the sausages are made and the history of the shop and answered all the questions asked by professional Tealby-based copywriter, Sarah Lamballe, who helped develop a 'friendly tone of voice for Ian's 'brand'.
"There are lots of things customers want to know when ordering online" explains Sarah "How fresh the products are, when and how they are made, how they'll be dispatched and when. It's important to convey all this in a user-friendly way as online customers have notoriously low attention spans! Because we've been working for major blue chip mail order companies for many years, we know all the triggers to use and the legal requirements too."
With the initial concept underway Ian approached his bank to arrange merchant status so he could take credit card payments. He found the visuals and background information on secure hosting and the e-commerce software very useful in explaining his strategy to the bank and was delighted to get their support.
At this point Ian also researched the practical issues of packaging, chilling and dispatch methods. "Creating the actual web site design, labels and literature was the quickest and easiest bit" revealed Ian, " Finding the time to chase up packaging suppliers, and research couriers and chilled dispatch is very difficult when you're running a shop on your own."
Due to the costs of despatch Ian decided to sell his sausages in bulk targeting restaurants, pubs, hotels and B&Bs, however the rural recession caused by the foot and mouth scare has affected market conditions. Ian is pleased with his hit count which is almost 1,000. "That's a potential 1,000 new customers that have heard about my sausages, and slowly I'm noticing increased footfall through the shop".
Ian is now concentrating on national PR and awareness campaigns linking with other web sites and trying to get listed in guides to discerning mail order shopping. This has generated lots of interest and he has been sending samples far and wide including to the Observer Food Magazine, generating favourable comments. The editor of best of British magazine described them as "absolutely delicious."
Importantly City Graphics Partnership registered Ian's site with all the major UK search engines and embedded keywords and metatags in the pages as part of their service to maximise search engines ranking. "I came up number one on Yahoo" beams Ian, "I was delighted."
What does the future hold? Because City Graphics Partnership control Ian's web space themselves, they can do instant updates for him via ISDN. Ian hopes to add his recent BBC Radio Lincolnshire radio interview with Katie Anderson so visitors with a PC soundcard can hear it. He is also thinking about finding a distributor to target new trade customers further afield and says he is always open to new ideas for his sausages.