Our £5m free ad campaign is giving businesses a boost

Spreading the word about a new business is always hard to do. And when lockdown struck in March, that suddenly became an even greater hurdle for thousands of people who were trying to get a money-making idea off the ground. 

Without a large established customer base, Susan Leonard was one of those who found it increasingly difficult to drum up interest in her face products company, Eva Skin Care. Formerly a civil servant, 63-year-old Susan was forced to give up her career a few years ago after an accident damaged her back and made it impossible to continue in a desk job. 

While looking for something to do instead, her family suggested that she should turn her hobby of making natural skincare products for friends into a full-time business. ‘I made a lot of my sales at craft fairs, events, house parties and so on,’ says Susan, ‘so when lockdown hit, it was a bit of a disaster.’ 

She tried Facebook adverts, but that had little effect, and traditional advertising in newspapers, magazines, radio or TV was completely beyond her budget. So when The Mail on Sunday launched a groundbreaking advertising offer to help struggling small businesses get back on their feet, Susan jumped at the chance. 

She secured one of 1,600 packages of free adverts worth £3,000 across our newspaper group’s titles, which include The Mail on Sunday, the Daily Mail, Metro and the i. And to Susan’s delight, she was inundated with new customers. 

‘It was unbelievable,’ she says. ‘I was immediately doing ten times the number of sales than before. It was quite exciting.’ Susan makes all of her chemical-free skincare products, which include face creams, serums and soaps, at home (the name Eva is a combination of her granddaughters’ names, Evie and Isla). While traffic and sales to her website evaskincare.co.uk shot up after her adverts appeared, she was also getting orders by phone. ‘Several people phoned up to get some advice about their skincare issues and I was able to help them over the phone as well as take their orders,’ says Susan. 

‘Some people are still quite cautious about shopping online so that gave them peace of mind and I am sure it will help my business survive during these difficult times.’ Almost 6,000 small businesses applied for the Daily Mail and General Trust’s advertising grants, which were launched at the peak of the lockdown to help businesses survive the potentially catastrophic impact of coronavirus. 

The £5 million scheme, funded by DMGT and launched in partnership with the Federation of Small Businesses trade body, was designed to rescue the local businesses who are the lifeblood of communities across the country. It also aimed to raise awareness of the part we could all play in helping our neighbourhood businesses as they struggled to cope with the almighty blow to sales dealt by the Covid-19 lockdown. 

To qualify for the scheme, applicants had to employ no more than 150 people and have an annual turnover of no more than £6 million. 

All of the entries went before a judging panel from DMGT and FSB and the selected recipients of the £3,000 grants have over the past few weeks had free adverts running in The Mail on Sunday, Daily Mail, the i newspaper and the Metro as well as online adverts on Mail Online, one of the world’s biggest news websites, and Metro.co.uk, which is read by millions across the UK. 

Experts from Mail Metro Media, our advertising arm, were on hand to craft the adverts and the messages to potential customers to help small firms get the most from the scheme. You will see today’s 50 adverts on pages 126 and 127 and we urge you to get behind the businesses to give them a much-needed boost. The scheme is due to run until September, giving more and more businesses the opportunity to get their name in front of our millions of readers each week in print and online. 

Mike Cherry, chairman of the Federation of Small Businesses, says: ‘This has been one of the most challenging periods for small businesses in modern times and the Mail Metro Media’s generous package of support has been invaluable. 

‘On behalf of our members and the small business community, we would like to say a heartfelt thank you to The Mail on Sunday, Daily Mail, Metro and the i paper for creating this hugely generous scheme. 

‘It has helped ease some of the burden many small businesses have faced over the last few months and the businesses featured say they are absolutely delighted with the impact their adverts have had.’ 

Another entrepreneur to get a boost from the free adverts is David Cherrington, whose Shepherd’s Hut Company was the very first to build shepherd’s huts from scratch for home use, such as a home office or a summer house. 

‘When lockdown hit we had to put everything on hold,’ he says. ‘We couldn’t finish off some huts or deliver others, we couldn’t get the timber supplies either, and we basically closed for four weeks while our income went down to zero. It was like a zombie time.’ 

After a month David was able to restart by working on his own – another employee is furloughed and another has just restarted – and business has started to get back on track. Being a recipient of the coveted £3,000 DMGT advertising grant was a real boost to business, says David. 

‘It was great to be able to advertise across all the different titles,’ he says, ‘and traffic to our website noticeably increased, as did the number of calls enquiring about purchasing one of our huts. 

‘Now I’m able to visit potential customers and find out what space they have, as well as talk them through all the different huts we make, I’m hoping there will be some great results.’ 

David launched his business in 1999 when he sold his family farm in Wiltshire and moved to west Devon. His bespoke huts which retail from £10,950 to more than £21,000 (the company also makes the ‘complete home’ Wayfarer’s Hut for £125,000) have been snapped up by everyone from celebrities to Oscar-winners – although he will not reveal any names – and his business is likely to benefit from the rapid rise in homeworking as well as hotels and campsites wanting to add extra rooms and offer ‘glamping’ opportunities. 

‘I believe home-working and glamping will be sectors that will survive and even thrive,’ he says, ‘which means we should be all right if we can survive this fourmonth hit. It was great to benefit from the DMGT adverts during this tough time.’ 

Freight shipping and flip-flops might not be obvious business partners, but entrepreneur Matt Waring is behind both of them. Having set up international shipping company Frontier Express 13 years ago, it was while on holiday in Turkey that Matt bought a pair of Ceyo flip-flops and was instantly impressed. 

‘I like wearing flip-flops and realised straightaway these were a little bit different,’ he says. ‘They were basically the most comfortable and best quality flip-flop I’d seen.’ 

Trying to buy another pair once back in the UK proved to be impossible and he quickly realised that there was a gap in the market. 

Last year, he launched The Flip Flop Hut to sell Ceyos exclusively and said he was ‘thrilled’ to be one of the winners of the coveted £3,000 advertising grants. 

‘The print adverts in particular were really good,’ says Matt. ‘I was really impressed with them and we saw a noticeable increase in traffic to flipflophut.co.uk as well as sales as a result. It was an instant effect.’