It’s that time of year again – and what a whirlwind year it’s been.
It’s fair to say that 2020 has not been an easy feat for anyone. But regardless, we’ve stumbled our way through just like everyone else has, experiencing our fair share of challenges, but also some highs as digital took centre stage.
So, join me as I reflect on a rollercoaster year for Loom.
Covid-19 hit & we adjusted
Back in March, the reality of COVID-19 hit everyone hard. The shift to working from home was a sudden one – and although we were used to working from home occasionally, we weren’t used to it on a permanent basis. We moved into our home offices a week before lockdown and have stayed put ever since.
It’s been an adjustment for the team, who, like a lot of you reading this, were used to the collaboration, support and social office atmosphere. But I’m incredibly proud of them. They’ve been able to continue to drive amazing results for our clients, stayed on top of industry news, and most admirably, supported one another from a distance.
As a business, we’ve done what we can to keep everyone connected. Our Monday Fikas are still a crucial part of the week, we joined the quiz trend, threw virtual drink meetups, and had a virtual Christmas party with a murder mystery performance from Bristol’s Wardrobe Theatre.
Some of the team even carried on with virtual fitness competitions, with Claire taking part in the virtual Bristol 10k! We also celebrated our 11 years in business with some local brownies and a virtual meet up and spent more time outdoors with our 4.5-day working weeks throughout the summer.
And, while COVID-19 certainly had an initial impact on a lot of our clients’ businesses, the team went above and beyond to help support them in moving their business forward online. As a result, client media spend grew 23% YOY this year, and we’ve seen some outstanding results for many of our clients.
We adapted our clients’ digital marketing strategies
When COVID-19 hit, we knew we needed to go above and beyond to help the businesses we work within whatever ways possible.
Our expertise and experience enabled us to revisit strategies, pivot our support, and think outside the box to help them through what was such a sudden and difficult challenge.
And, despite some uncomfortable weeks, the team’s dedication paid off.
Our long-standing client, Permagard, saw incredible growth this year, despite closing the business for a month during the lockdown. Both organic traffic, biddable media and the home DIY trend has helped the Bristol-based business drive record numbers of traffic and revenue through the site.
Henchman, who came on board as a new client in March, set us a fairly ambitious revenue target. After exceeding that target by Q3, they tripled the goal which we’ve also helped them achieve through a combination of biddable media, social media, and SEO fixes.
Our client Infinity Motorcycles also saw record-breaking results this year. Their Black Friday sale saw huge YOY growth as a result of our team adapting their Black Friday strategy to focus on online sales.
The team also helped some clients evolve their websites and brands this year. The Loom team worked closely with Transvault to successfully launch their new brand and website. We also supported ForrestBrown with their site re-refresh.
Loom won industry and business awards
This year, we were nominated for four awards and we won two. And, although we couldn’t dress up and celebrate in style, it was still amazing to have our work, our business and our employees recognised.
Our Bristol Life Award was the pride and joy of the year, with our business being named the winners of the “Business Services” category.
Vicky Hockley was also named in the BIMA 100 list this year, following on from Karen’s win in 2019. Vicky, who amongst other roles is our Chief Happiness Officer, was included on the list under ‘Champions of Change’ recognising her forward-thinking approach to creating a positive and nurturing work environment.
Our client work was also nominated by two prestigious award bodies. We were nominated for the Drum Search Awards “best-integrated SEO and PPC campaign” for our work with Permagard, the UK Biddable Awards “Best Integrated Biddable Campaign” for our work with Lifetime Training.
We welcomed new Loomies to the team
2020 saw us welcome two new faces to the Loom team.
Laurence Matone, an SEO specialist, joined at the start of 2020, just before the pandemic hit. But, despite just a short time in the office, he’s been consistent in delivering our clients high level SEO support throughout the year.
Romy Gwilym came on board in September as our new PPC Manager, and has hit the ground running, helping us on-board new clients as well as offering fresh perspectives on our existing client accounts.
And although we haven’t spent time in the office (or the pub) with the new team members, they’ve both adapted seamlessly to the Loom way of thinking, becoming huge assets to the team.
We welcomed new clients
We welcomed a range of exciting new clients to our books in 2020. Each a leader in their respective fields, we are thrilled to be helping these businesses thrive in the digital space, especially when digital has become even more crucial for business success.
Some of our new retainer clients include:
As well as welcoming more clients to our books, we were also lucky to support a range of amazing businesses with some one-off digital marketing projects. These businesses included:
We achieved our best client retention rate ever
This year we saw a client retention of 88%. I am proud of this for a couple of reasons. Firstly, being able to retain as many clients as we have despite experiencing the hardest year in many business’ history is a huge success on its own.
But secondly, I’m also incredibly proud of the team for making this happen. In what has been difficult for everyone on a personal and professional level, we have made sure no client was let down. If anything, they’ve made sure we’ve exceeded expectations, just like we always strive to.
We welcomed next generation Loomies
Aside from the professional madness of 2020, this year has been a particularly special year for many of our team. Client Strategy Director, Karen Pearce, took some time off at the end of March to welcome her beautiful son, Reuben, into the world. She returned at the end of October, raring to go.
2021 will see new Loomie babies born, too! Our SEO manager Claire will be taking some time off from January to settle into motherhood.
Looking at the year ahead
After such a difficult year, I’m sure everyone is looking ahead to 2021 with hope and relief that this year is drawing to a close.
We have a lot of plans for the year ahead, and after a well deserved break this Christmas, we’ll be starting the new year by onboarding new team members to reinforce our Biddable media, content and SEO offering. We’ll also be launching Project Stitch, a restructure to reimagine the fabric of Loom.
I’d like to take this opportunity to say a huge thank you to our loyal clients, agency partners, and the team. The support we’ve all shown each other this year has been a great reminder of the strong community we have in Bristol, and the clients we have the pleasure of working with.
The virtual office will close this year at 4pm on 23rd December, and reopen at 9am on the 4th January. We will be available during this time, and will be managing biddable media accounts over the Christmas period.
I wish you all an incredibly happy, and well deserved, Christmas break, and a very happy 2021.
