MDL picked up the Marketing Magic award at this year's Northern Star Business Awards, and were presented the title by sponsors CALA.

MDL (Maritime Developments Ltd) is a market-leading offshore flexible handling equipment and engineering specialist.

Through market review and company positioning analysis, the MDL marketing team identified an opportunity to increase revenues by focusing its messaging on its in-house design and manufacturing capability.

The “We Build Innovation” campaign set out to grow brand recognition and generate enquiries for its newbuild equipment, and it achieved this in spades.

The multi-media campaign encompassed a variety of platforms to reach its target audiences, including new pages on the website, a promotional video and header, and a blog from the CEO.

Internally, MDL’s in-house magazine, MariTimes, compiled news articles and opinion pieces from across the business with an issue dedicated to the campaign.

Furthermore, a monthly LinkedIn newsletter was launched using a new feature which facilitates reaching new audiences with regular content.

The biggest surprise came from the LinkedIn newsletter, which recorded over 1,000 organic followers within the first day of publishing.

The newsletter was a new tool identified by the marketing team to reach new audiences not on the company’s mailing database. With no sponsorship or other non-paid promotion used to spread the word, the team found the initial response staggering.

In addition to metrics such as a 37% increase in traffic to the website and 15% increase enquiries received via marketing channels, the most important measure is the bottom line.

Since the launch of the campaign in August 2022, revenues from newbuild opportunities increased 140% year-on-year in 2023 and has continued strongly. Both the number of new operations and their value have increased in each half year.

The Finalists

  • Clan Cancer Support
  • Fifth Ring
  • Mearns & Gill
  • ThinkPR & A-nd

Click here to view the finalist videos.

About the sponsor

Founded in 1875 and building premium homes for over forty years, today Cala continues to apply the same guiding principles of exceptional design and build, meeting stringent standards and offering value for money in a wide range of sought-after locations.

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