Lancaster Business Hub - Your Business Space in the City is the message being sent to small companies looking to grow their presence in the B2B sector in Lancaster and the surrounding district as we head into the economic uncertainty of 2012. Lancaster Business Hub is the brainchild of local businessman, Mark Beeching, who has been running his successful printing.com franchise from prominent city centre premises in Penny Street, Lancaster for 8 years.

As Mark explains, the idea behind Lancaster Hub has been evolving for some time as a positive response to the pressures the long drawn out recession has had on business operating costs and a changing attitude in companies to marketing expenditure and willingness to commit to fixed overhead commitments such as office space rental and permanent staff costs.

“As a leading supplier to the SME sector through my printing.com business I’ve seen first hand the changes small companies are having to cope with in a recessionary but also fast moving, technology challenged environment.”

“Printing.com in Lancaster deals with an average of 20 new clients every month giving me a unique insight into what’s happening at the local business coal face. Many of these are new start-ups which are typically individuals seeking to market their business services from a home based office. Service and consultancy companies in particular are able to save costs by working from home but lack crucial visibility to the local business community who may be seriously interested in trying their services but don’t know about them.”

“I’ve been struck by the number of times I’ve felt ‘that’s a great idea’ but then haven’t seen much evidence of that company’s marketing presence in the local area. I’ve often recommended one client to another on an informal basis where I feel they would mutually benefit from using each other’s services or working together to target the same business sector.”

“At the same time, my high street premises are high profile with the luxury of more space than I need to market my own print and design services. From this the idea evolved of sharing facilities and marketing presence with like- minded companies offering complimentary services to the local business community who could benefit from a low cost foothold in the city centre”

“Having networked the concept with both existing, home based clients and new business contacts, the overwhelmingly positive response has given me the confidence to launch Lancaster Business Hub and start to build a network of partners looking to promote their services through the Hub and in association with the undoubted strength of the printing.com brand.”

The Hub can be utilised for marketing only with a ‘my services’ leaflet, business card and optional poster display package at a low fixed monthly cost or augmented by enquiry handling, hot desking and meeting room facilities.  In addition to the vital city centre presence, ‘a clicks and mortar’ approach will leverage each partner’s marketing visibility via the soon to be launched lancasterbusinesshub.com website which will provide a directory of services, reciprocal links to partner websites and other useful information to raise each company’s reach to the local business community and boost rankings in Google and other leading search engines which are so vital in raising online visibility and accelerating business growth.

Hub Partners can also take advantage of preferential rates on their print and design requirements through printing.com and utilise the newly added Printroom facility for short run digital print, document binding and lamination and large format poster printing. Further savings in marketing costs may be achieved through networking and shared direct marketing activities among Business Hub members. 

Says Mark, “By keeping charges low and flexible (from as little as £30+VAT per month plus sign up fee) we’re hoping to attract a good number of initial partners in the start-up phase so that Lancaster Business Hub becomes an important part of the business landscape for any business seeking information and ready access to a strong, pro-active portfolio of local suppliers looking to help them with their requirements.”

Lancaster Business Hub | 77-81 Penny Street | Lancaster | LA1 1XN t: 01524 220100