The brief

Kybotech is a Worksop-based e-commerce business and manufacturer founded in 2000 by Charles Walton. Behind the brand sit some well-known names — GardenBuildingsDirect.co.uk, BillyOh, Bobbin Bikes, PhysioRoom, Trueshopping. These brands had consumer recognition and media coverage. Kybotech itself had almost none.

The problem was practical as well as reputational. As one of the largest employers in Worksop, Kybotech was struggling to recruit manufacturing staff and graduates because so few people knew the business existed. You can’t attract talent to a company people haven’t heard of. The brief was to change that — build a regional profile for the parent company and raise the founder’s personal brand within the East Midlands business community.

The approach

Two clear tactics, executed with focus and consistency. First, business awards. Despite being in business for over two decades and having grown rapidly, Charles had never entered Kybotech into any awards. We researched the East Midlands and national awards landscape and identified five highly relevant opportunities — Made In the Midlands, the Nottingham Post Business Awards, IOD East Midlands, the Nottinghamshire Business Awards, and the SME Awards. We developed submissions across categories including Company of the Year, Entrepreneur of the Year and Director of the Year.

Second, a focused regional PR campaign profiling both the business and its founder. With a major employer in a Nottinghamshire market town comes genuine local news value — key appointments, manufacturing investment, new product lines, business milestones. We turned that steady stream of internal news into a consistent flow of press releases for local, regional and trade media.

The result

Out of five awards entered, Kybotech were shortlisted or reached finalist stage in all five — and won two. Each shortlisting and win generated its own press release and media coverage, creating a virtuous cycle of positive news for the business. The regional press campaign built the kind of sustained local profile that makes a business a known quantity in its community — important for recruitment, for commercial relationships, and for the broader reputation of the group.

This is a good example of what B2B PR can achieve when it’s built around a clear business objective. The goal wasn’t coverage for its own sake. It was making Kybotech a name that people in the East Midlands would recognise — and it worked.