I worked on a two-year tender for the marketing of the Scottish Borders Walking Festival.

This involved branding, marketing strategy, marketing literature design, web design (and overseeing the build and development) advertising, email marketing, and PR (over £100,000 AVE in press coverage was achieved).

In the second year, I introduced the marketing concept of inviting a walker from every county in the UK.

This resulted in walkers from 46 different counties (from the Highlands & Islands right down to the south coast of England) attending, compared to 29 counties the year before.

The festival also saw the biggest attendance in its 16-year history, up over 20% on the previous year (which itself was up 16% on the highest previous attendance). All SMART targets were not only achieved, but exceeded:

• Number of walkers attending: 20% over and above target
• Participants outwith the Scottish Borders: 8% over and above target
• International visitors, staying at least two nights: 50% over and above target
• Participants below 55 years of age: 8% over and above target
• Participants taking part in some other festival-related activity (besides walking): 24% over and above target

The campaign was a finalist in the ‘Marketing Campaign of the Year’ category, at the Scottish Borders Business Excellence Awards.