Arcanum has been shortlisted in not one, not two, but three differeny categories at the Lincolnshire Marketing Awards 2026. The shortlist went live last week, and the winners are due to be announced at the black-tie ceremony later this month.
One particular nomination already feels like a win. One of my own social media clients has been shortlisted alongside me in the ‘Best Use of Social Media for Growth’ category. Anyone can write a persuasive award entry about their own marketing, but it’s a very different thing when a business that learned the method from you gets independently judged as one of the county’s best users of social media, on the strength of results they produced themselves, in their own industry, without you touching the account.
If I lose to them, the method still won.
The three categories
Best Use of Social Media for Growth (Arcanum Academy Ltd)
Start-Up / New Business of the Year (Arcanum Academy Ltd)
Entrepreneur of the Year (Eleanor Bryan)
Three is the maximum number of entries any business is permitted to submit, so this is a clean sweep of everything I put in. Every entry was judged independently by three judges and scored on merit – not how many tickets you buy. You can see the full shortlist on the Lincolnshire Marketing Awards website.
What the Best Use of Social Media for Growth entry was built on
My entry argued one thing: the industry consensus that visibility requires volume is wrong, and it is particularly wrong for small businesses.
Attend almost any social media course and you will be told to post three times a week. Some trainers say three times a day. That advice fails owner-operators, because producing that volume of content takes time nobody running a business actually has. So they burn out, stop posting, and conclude social media does not work for them.
My method inverts it: post less, but post strategically.
I proved it on my own channels before I taught it to anyone. Over the last 18 months, the account I started to test my methods has achieved the following:
- 44 pieces of content published, fewer than three a month
- 19,907,412 views across Instagram, YouTube, and TikTok
- An average of 452,441 views per piece of content
- A best-performing post of 1,590,584 views, 96.7% of which reached non-followers
- Approaching 200,000 followers, grown from zero
- £0 spent on advertising
The strategies behind that growth are what the morning session of my social media workshop covers: how platform algorithms actually distribute a post, the stages it moves through, what pushes it into the next audience tier, and what kills its reach. Attendees also build a bespoke posting plan using my three proprietary frameworks, PRISM™, FACET™, and REFLECT™, so everyone leaves with more than a year’s worth of content ideas mapped to their own business.
The client results the entry was actually won on
Judges are unmoved by a trainer’s own follower count, and rightly so. What matters is whether the method transfers. I added several client examples to my application to show the range of industries my methods work in.
Jailhouse Frock, a vintage clothing shop in Lincoln, had published around 480 posts in three years at roughly ten new followers each. The first post after the workshop brought 439 followers, 800 website visits in a day, seven online orders, and £241.33 in revenue inside 48 hours. She has since grown by more than 10,000 followers.
Samantha Kate Bridal, a hair and makeup studio, had been reaching 500 to 1,500 people per post. The first post after the workshop reached over 100,000.
Valuloid, a Lincoln filmmaker crowdfunding his first project, was reaching 1,000 to 3,000 people. He has since grown his following more than tenfold, with recent posts passing 100,000 views and attracting national attention.
Capture the Curious, a product photographer, had been reaching 100 to 500 people on TikTok. After the workshop, posts climbed to 9,000, then 21,000, then 56,000 views, and brought in her first American client.
The Start-Up and Entrepreneur entries
Arcanum Academy launched 18 months ago as a sister company to Arcanum Copy, the copywriting and SEO consultancy I have run for twelve years. In that time the Academy has trained over 400 business owners and professionals, turned over a significant in its first year at an 82% gross margin, and has been profitable since the first workshop. It was funded entirely from trading revenue, with no investment, grant, or borrowing, and it holds the highest number of five-star Google reviews of any training provider in the area, making it the top-rated training provider in Lincolnshire.
Every ticketed workshop has sold out except one, which I had accidentally scheduled during the Lincolnshire Show. Capacity went from 10 places to up to 16 after a venue upgrade, and they still sell out. Attendees travel from across the UK. Customer acquisition cost is £0: every booking comes from organic social media or a referral from someone who found me there. The business is marketed using the method it sells.
The Entrepreneur of the Year entry covered the wider picture: five businesses, each one a by-product of the last, including Danelaw Lime and Heritage Conservation, a property portfolio of three formerly empty rental properties brought back into use, and the renovation account that began life as a marketing experiment and is now a revenue line through brand partnerships with household brands like B&Q, Ryobi, and Huel.
The awards night
The ceremony is swiftly approaching and I can’t wait. Winners are announced on the night and nobody knows the results in advance. The Lincolnshire Marketing Awards are always a night to remember, so I’m really looking forward to catching up with friends and making new ones at what promises to be an excellent evening.
Want the method that got me shortlisted?
The workshop that produced those client results runs monthly in Lincoln. They sell out, usually well in advance.
Book a social media workshop or book a 1:1 consultation day if you would rather work on your own account for a day than sit in a room. And if you need help with copywriting or SEO, I’m only a message away.