Wriggle Marketing, a Gosforth based digital marketing agency, will be celebrating its 10th year in business next year.
Starting in the spare room of CEO/Founder Nick Gianfreda, Wriggle Marketing had humble beginnings, but has seen significant growth since its inception and is now run by both Nick and Wriggle’s Managing Director, Mitchell Harrison. Now, with a strong team of 10 individuals and clients in varying sectors across the UK and Europe, they’re showing no signs of stopping.
So, we asked what the secret was to their success…
From the outset, I knew the vision and knew what the business needed to achieve. I wanted to create a marketing agency which provided honest and transparent digital advice. I wanted to create a working environment which allowed both collaboration and flexibility for our staff and I wanted the clients to know every month the impact Wriggle had on their business. If you adhere to these three things, you retain clients and retain staff. Whilst it doesn’t sound tough, at times, it can feel impossible.
Whilst we market ourselves as a marketing ‘agency’, we are a mixture between agency and consultancy; we work hand in hand with our clients to ensure results are delivered and operate as an extension of our client’s marketing team. Each and every one of our clients is very different and that is why bespoke data driven strategies are put into place. Following this, not only are these strategies tracked by the team to ensure we are having an impact but the management team ensures that results are being generated for the clients and that they are being communicated to key stakeholders within the business. As I say to all clients, and as they say on our video testimonials (which are on our website), we are not a volume business, we like and want to work hand in hand with our clients. With 10 – 12 team members and with 30 or so high-value clients, we know we have the time required to make a significant impact on the businesses we work with.
What market and sectors do you work in?
If you had asked this two years ago. My answer would have been ANY. But, now 95% of our client base operates on a B2B basis and are in industrious sectors such as engineering, print, construction, demolition, machinery & print.
Favourite clients
All of them!! We are very fortunate as a business that we can pick and choose who we work with and as a result of this, all our clients are our favourite. We have solid relationships with all of them and say from the outset, communication is key. Clients will always get more out of the team the more they communicate with them; the more communication and feedback the team get, the more motivated the team becomes. When a client is engaged in the process and buys into what we are doing, we provide exceptional results. We aim to understand how each of our clients works best and we then adapt to that. This means that when we’re hit with a barrier such as items not being signed off, we create a solution that resonates best with our client’s working style. As a team, we will always favour a proactive approach, and this is essential to the delivery of results.
What are the biggest challenges you face?
All businesses have different pressures, and in my mind, our biggest struggles all form part of the fun. I would say that hiring in this sector is particularly challenging. We’re dedicated to building a high-performing, passionate team of individuals (something we’re proud to have achieved so far) and this can make sourcing new hires a challenge. When operating a business where our success is measured on leads, enquiries, or website transactions, it’s essential that new team members understand the importance of combining their expertise with a strong focus on commerciality.
Mitchell and I put a huge amount of time into training amongst the whole team, especially around commerciality.
What’s the outlook for Wriggle?
Particularly in the last couple of years, the business has changed massively. We’ve expanded our office, and have just taken the opportunity to fully rebrand the business. The new brand now represents who we are as a business. It’s ‘more grown up’ as some clients and suppliers have commented, and I’m really proud of the team for all of the work that’s gone into it. I hope the rebrand will help us achieve our business objectives over the next few years. We are looking to onboard 8-10 clients per year. This seems to be the optimum number and ensures we retain our existing clients while growing and ensure we employ the right individuals to execute the work required for our clients.
It’s been an exciting few years of growth and change for Wriggle Marketing, and we’re looking forward to continuing to build on that over the next 12 months.
www.wrigglemarketing.co.uk