Ben Hopkins-Lefevre

HOPKINS–LEFEVRE® MARKETING is the culmination of over 20 years in the food and drink industry. I am a marketing specialist heading up a business built around the needs of wine, beer, spirits and food brands. Key areas of strength include Acquisition and Email Marketing (we are a respected food and drink specialist partner to both Klaviyo and Mailchimp), Brand Partnerships (with over 15 years of hands-on knowledge and experience in growing this niche channel to its full potential), and Delivering Subscription Models that drive loyalty, growth, and profits for the benefit of all. I have personally run (or supported the leadership teams) in inspirational direct-to-consumer brands, including Abel & Cole, Beer52, Bloom & Wild, Cafepod, Charles Tyrwhitt Shirts, Dennis Publishing, Donald Russell, Freddie's Flowers, Gousto, Hello Fresh, Hotel Chocolat, Laithwaites Wine, Naked Wines, and Virgin Wines. We are here to help your food and/or drinks business achieve the same.

Whilst maintaining Strategic direction for a number of The Creative Armoury's E-commerce clients, I accepted a promotion to the new role of Head of Partnerships to help support and grow our alliances with key E-commerce suppliers and service providers, including Klaviyo, Shopify, Reviews.io, Gorgias and Recharge.

My role at The Creative Armoury evolved into leading the strategic and marketing services for our diverse mix of clients, including multi-channel retailers, food and beverage brands, and FMCG high-growth brands.

A strategy-led creative marketing agency, based in Norwich, Norfolk. We provide strategic, creative & marketing services for multi-channel retailers, food & beverage brands and FMCG high-growth brands throughout East Anglia and across the UK.

Action-packed 5 years collaborating with an incredible mix of market leading retailers and high growth brands, including: Food brands abelandcole.co.uk, donaldrussell.com, gousto.co.uk, hellofresh.co.uk, hotelchocolat.com, simplycook.com Drinks brands beer52.com, cafepod.com, kopi.co.uk (sold to CafeDirect), laithwaites.co.uk, vicampo.de Retail / Clothing brands baukjen.com, charlestyrwhitt.com, isabellaoliver.com, woolovers.com Lifestyle brands bloom&wild.com, freddiesflowers.com, theweek.co.uk, weekendboxclub.co.uk

A group of friends gathered around the kitchen table, thinking they could create a marketplace for great wine. The kind of place you wouldn’t pay a premium for fancy labels or marketing hype, and where you spend more of your money on the juice inside the bottle... add on that the heroes of the day (the winemakers) get paid fairly for putting their heart into every bottle. Turns out we were on to something. One of my proudest moments was launching Naked Wines and recruiting the first 500,000 customers. During those first four to five years, my small marketing team generated a risk-free new customer acquisition stream through strategic and tactical partnerships, resulting in over 135,000 'mature' subscribers who paid at least £20 a month into their Naked Wines account to spend on wine. Genuinely, it became the most significant valuation driver for the business. Our little 'Angels' concept was the subscription model of our wildest dreams! Building this business from scratch, and specifically helping to create and evolve the key customer retention model, was pivotal in developing my understanding of real customer lifetime value. We parted company when my firstborn was joined by her little brother – a little prematurely. The opportunity to create a business of my own, where I could enjoy a closer bond with my children in the early years, was just too good to pass up. My journey into agency and consultancy life was about to begin.

Part of the team that saved Virgin Wines from the brink of disaster, helping drive sales to our initial £20 million turnover goal. In three years, I tripled new customer acquisition, from 40,000 to 120,000 annually. "Drinking is only fun when you don't overdo it" is one of my lasting contributions, still in use today (June 2025).

My first experience with B2B relationship marketing changed my career for the better. This is also the point at which I created and began to scale mass market wine vouchers, driving a change in wine promotion as a whole for the next fifteen years.

Implemented the 'upsell'. A game-changer for the business, it turned out.

Tasked with creating a ‘one stop shop’ insurance proposition for small businesses, I sourced and negotiated terms and rates with a handpicked panel of underwriters, set out and implemented a successful recruitment campaign to acquire new clients, then rolled out plans for scalable growth and established the portfolio of business within the wider commercial dept.

Passed 31 May 2023 - 98%