Wiggly Wigglers is a company that cropped up more than once at the Digital Britain briefing. Heather Gorringe founded the sustainable gardening business in 1990. Based on a farm in rural Herefordshire, she started selling worms for compost bins and now has a turnover of £2.5m offering everything from goats’ hair socks to plants and bird food.
Using online technology, Heather made her business a success. Being based on a farm, she had no passing trade therefore relied on the internet. She states ‘To us, there’s no difference between DM, email, web, blogs, podcasts, videos and Facebook – they all bring us feedback and sales’.
Another key move in her path to success was letting customers being a part of the idea generation process. They built their catalogue within a private wiki web page where customers request what they want, for example one customer requested a push lawnmower which Heather had not thought of, but it ended up being an excellent addition to the range. Having communication and engagement with the customers allowed the business to grow, using simple online social networking. Keeping up interest with blogs and podcasts, Wiggly Wigglers is still growing.
The speakers at the briefing used this success story to highlight how big a part broadband played in this story, and without it rural areas, small business such as farms, are getting left behind and being put at a disadvantage.
Along with this I see this story as an excellent example of what can be achieved using social media. The use of blogs, podcasts and social networking on Facebook and Twitter creates interest, engagement and communities. By combining the use of all these resources one person can tell a message to a million people, the opportunities are endless and there isn’t a better time to get on board than now!
Website – http://www.wigglywigglers.co.uk/
Blog – http://wigglywigglers.blogspot.com/
Podcast – http://www.wigglywigglers.co.uk/podcasts/
Twitter – http://twitter.com/wiggled
0 Response to “Wiggly Wigglers: A Success Story”