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Digital Ethos: How our Leicester digital marketing agency has changed in 2021

  • 2021: A Year of Changes for Our Agency

     

    As 2022 begins Digital Ethos braves this new world forged during the pandemic years. Despite the challenges, we found new ways to transact, operate and communicate. 

    Using the wealth of knowledge and experience we have for digital marketing, our goals as a business remain the same: to implement bespoke digital marketing strategies adapted to today’s market. Let’s take a look at our operations thus far and how we helped some of our clients achieve real results.

     

    Continuing Rapid Agency Growth

     

    Growth is an essential part of every business, and for our agency, it’s something that has been an ongoing part of the organisation. Even during the Covid-19 pandemic, Digital Ethos doubled in size since the last quarter of 2020, including five starters joining the company through the government Kickstart Scheme, an initiative that helps create jobs for young people aged sixteen to twenty-four. Not to mention, our international expansions, opening offices in Hamburg and Toronto.

    I made my first full time hire in February 2018. I now have an incredible team of 55 employees. In that time, we’ve gone from a 6-figure business to a £4 million one.” Luke Tobin, CEO of Digital Ethos

    Since 2016, we’ve been helping our clients achieve extraordinary results – our team of experts in digital marketing, combines technical excellence with strategic creativity to deliver tailored marketing strategies. Over the last few years, Digital Ethos has seen an average of 100% year-on-year (YoY) growth, with more than 120 clients having turned over a profit of 25% YoY. What a year it’s been! For more on how 2021 has gone, you can check out our yearly roundup.

     

    Strategic Operational Management

     

    The bedrock of our ethos is our innovative culture, as we encourage every facet of the organisation to think outside the box. This logic also applies to our internal operations. As agencies retracted during Covid-19, we reacted by hiring staff four months into the pandemic. With thirty new staff around the world from South Africa to Portugal and from Greece to Canada, the recruitment drive has been key to ensuring we can continue the exponential growth that the business has witnessed in the last 12 months. 

    “By hiring staff from around the world we’ve been able to attract the very best talent. We have regular team and department meetings, where we train and have virtual events, which really helps to keep our culture alive.” Jessica Harvey, Head of Operations at Digital Ethos

    When things began to reopen, we were prepared for the digital boom and grew 170% from the start of the pandemic because of our ability to maintain a workforce that could cope with the pressures of the pandemic, making our operations stronger than ever before.

     

    Steering brands through the pandemic

     

    With a changing year, comings changing clients. We serviced clients from the clothing sector to manufacturing and the NHS to homeware. But moving forward, we aim to hone even more in on e-commerce and technology as service markets to grow our client roster. While the pandemic was a challenging time, we also saw it as an opportunity to grow. It goes without saying, flexibility and endurance in tough times are a must to stay afloat. 

    “In 2021 we saw that even more brands realised the importance of having a strong online presence and it was a great and enjoyable challenge for us to help them achieve that. It is never late to invest in your online presence and we are here to make sure that this investment is a great one for your business.” Jason Aiginitis, Head of Marketing at Digital Ethos

    Our global team of data strategists, designers, solution architects, set the goal to exceed expectations. We worked to bridge unmet needs and business imperatives through technology, and creativity, and since we are only as good as the results we achieve, here’s a taster of what we’ve been up to recently.

     

    Putting the VIP in VIP Bottles

     

    Established in 2014, VIP Bottles are an online luxury alcohol retailer specialising in international limited edition spirits. They first approached us in Leicester, enquiring about our digital marketing services in October 2020 to enhance their online presence as they were originally a physical store, struggling to gain volume and visibility online. At that point, only 17% of PPC revenue was generated through Google Shopping, and only 15 SKUs were advertised. So what was our approach?

    From an SEO perspective, the main focus was to build better site architecture with category breadcrumbs and content. Working through a comprehensive strategy meant we were able to produce guides, recipes, products, and so much more optimised to best SEO practice. Our goal was to focus on optimising product feed attributes in time for peak seasons.

    And guess what? We’ve only gone and done it:

    • BEST USE OF AUTOMATION – Winner: Digital Ethos & VIP Bottles – Making Every Shot Count 
    • SHOPPING ADS CAMPAIGN OF THE YEAR – Silver Award: Digital Ethos & VIP Bottles – Making Every Shot Count

     

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Our Take on Swift Direct Blinds

Swift Direct Blinds approached us after needing urgent recovery from a poorly managed website migration. They had haemorrhaging keywords and domain authority that required immediate attention, which prompted a request for an aggressive SEO strategy to meet long-term objectives as well as using PPC to scale the channel. 

Our digital marketing experts worked hand in hand with their in-house team in order to fulfil the SEO objectives. The first hurdle was website structure, addressing a large amount of 404 links, poorly structured breadcrumbs, and non-existent category structures. On top of this, a lot of time was dedicated to securing high-quality backlinks using shareable content. 

The PPC strategy sought out to build specific category campaigns that helped to establish the type of blinds that were being sold, allowing us to push products that were selling and scale down on the ones that weren’t. We also launched Google Shopping as a way of giving users the ability to see products and prices compared with the competition.

And guess what? We’ve only gone and done it again:

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A Holistic Approach for Earthly

 

Earthly is a B2B carbon offset platform and we were first approached by them as a crowdfunded startup in need of support on all channels of their online marketing. The aim was to increase brand exposure, be positioned as thought leaders to capture attention and generate leads – all whilst educating the world on the global impact of climate change. And the approach?

First, we were tasked with persona workshops so we understood our core segments to ensure the campaign was delivered in a phased approach. We then launched a paid search campaign on Google and Bing, gaining instant exposure for branded search terms and industry-relevant keywords. Whilst this was happening, we created an in-depth resource centre based on keyword and competitor research for SEO. 

An organic social media campaign was executed with PR, communicating Earthly as a ‘hot topic’ in the tech startup industry. And lastly, ongoing email communication was delivered to keep businesses and investors updated with project progress. And whilst we continue to work with Earthly, the result so far is:

  • 358% increase in website impression (from Google Search Console)
  • 455% increase in organic traffic
  • Multiple news coverage across key industry publications, including StartUps, Tech Round and Business Insider.
  • 73% increase in enquiries through the website

 

Take the First Step

 

Sure this year’s been tough, but with those challenges came a lot of successes and learning that have helped Digital Ethos evolve as a whole. And with these successes come a whole bunch of opportunities that are up for grabs, so watch this space!

Got a project for us? Rest assured, we can help and would love to put your brand on the ever-changing digital landscape! Digital marketing in Leicester has never seen such groundbreaking strategies. Contact us today so we can help you get the ball rolling.