In March 2024, the first Yorkshire BusinessWoman Awards ceremony was hosted at Marriott Leeds. The event was a huge success, bringing together business founders, thought leaders, influencers, and collaborators from across the region. It was a true celebration of all that’s fantastic about living and working in Yorkshire.
Planning a glittering event on this scale is no mean feat, so Yorkshire BusinessWoman mobilised a committee to coordinate all the moving parts. The committee comprised of Zoe Hands (Sales Leader of the Leeds Marriott), Jane Clynes (Jane Clyne Events), Rebecca Hopwood (Director of Youbee Media), and Debbie Dobson (Dakota Leeds). The committee contributed to each stage of planning, supporting Yorkshire BusinessWoman’s Gill Laidler and Freda Shafi.
We caught up with committee member Rebecca Hopwood after the event, to chat about her behind-the-scenes experience of the occasion and share her personal highlights.
Rebecca, can you tell me what motivated you to support this event?
As a partner to both Topic UK and Yorkshire BusinessWoman, I knew that Youbee Media as a marketing consultancy were ideally placed to manage event communications across multiple digital platforms. My core team contains expert digital marketers and graphic designers for social media management, so I knew that we could help with the event both visually and technically. I’m someone who likes to ‘get things done’ and I love organising, planning, and coordinating marketing campaigns. So as a team, I knew we had the right skills and experience for the job.
On a more personal note, my involvement with Yorkshire BusinessWoman was inspired by my friend and local figure, Mandy Taylor MBE. Mandy sadly lost her battle with cancer in 2021, but for many years she dedicated time, support and fundraising to local charities and events. She raised over £1 million for charities during her lifetime and ‘passed the baton’ before her passing.
We were also involved in the #BeMoreMandy campaign, and so the ‘Mandy Taylor MBE’ Award category at the Yorkshire BusinessWoman Awards was anther opportunity to show our support and gratitude to Mandy. She continues to inspire us every day.
What did you learn from this event?
Well, until you jump into a project like this, I don’t think you can appreciate how much work is involved in planning an awards ceremony! The whole committee brought their A-game, getting wholeheartedly stuck into the task list, tackling jobs large or small. One minute I could be storyboarding a promotional video for the venue, or sampling the evening menu, the next I’m folding 1000 raffle tickets and putting them in a bucket! After the event, I was left with a real sense of pride in all that we’d achieved together. We brought together some amazing hospitality and entertainment businesses, and their services combined to create a real ‘wow factor’, creating a fantastic event that everyone loved.
From a marketing perspective, what were the highlights?
Youbee Media have been fortunate enough to attend quite a few award ceremonies – and also take home some awards! So, we cherry-picked everything that had stood out to us at these glamorous occasions, pinpointing elements that had enhanced our experience as award nominees and guests. Then, we set out to give the Yorkshire BusinessWoman finalists an even better experience and make sure this was showcased on social media! To encourage people to get snappy with their smartphones, we made sure the guests felt like they were attending something special. As the first event, our pilot paves the way for even bigger and brighter award ceremonies. Hopefully this already builds excitement and momentum for 2025!
We were also delighted with the metrics that followed the event. My team worked across multiple platforms, creating digital assets for guests to share, and communicating what to expect on the evening. We encouraged attendees to use the hashtag #YBWAwards and share these in their posts. This got the event hashtag trending, and the result was an over 1300% uplift in content interactions, and an increase in reach of 144.4%. We’re really pleased with the engagement levels we generated, leading up to, during, and even after the event!
What do you feel this has done for your network?
The Yorkshire BusinessWoman community is already so supportive, but this event has strengthened existing relationships and while creating a bunch of new ones! It’s also incredibly rewarding to be viewed as a versatile, collaborative agency that can support an event on this scale with digital marketing and design. We’re very excited to do more events like this, showing more people how we can help bring the visual wow factor – with maximum engagement and reach! – to their own special events.
What can guests look forward to in 2025?
We’re already planning #YBWAwards 2025 – so save the date for Friday 7th March! We’ll be going back to the Leeds Marriott, as it was honestly the best venue we’ve been to for this kind of event. The whole team did a fantastic job for our guests, and it ran like clockwork. Many partners and sponsors also saw the value in the event, so we’re pleased that they’ve agreed to support us again next year. Watch this space!
Yorkshire BusinessWoman 2024: Youbee Media were pleased to support with:
- Creating consistent social media assets that showcased the event and its partners.
- Delivered a social media content plan that built excitement leading up to the awards.
- Put out calls for nominees on social media, resulting in hundreds of submissions.
- Designed assets for nominees and winners to share across their emails and social media, spreading the new brand even further.
- Built two engaging PowerPoint presentations to be shown throughout the evening. Welcoming guests, highlighting partners and sponsors and sharing key messages with a looping video, and a presentation of the winners during the awards ceremony.
- Consulted with the Yorkshire BusinessWoman team on how the brand translates across different mediums, as well as provided copy and copy checking on written content.
- Project managed the planning and shoot of a promotional video for the Leeds Marriott
If you need social media management advice, work with Youbee Media or join one of Becky’s marketing workshops for expert consultancy support.
