A Year In Review: Fuel Marketing & PR Achievements 2020
There’s no doubt that 2020 has been a tough year for us and many of our clients. As a full-service marketing and public relations agency, we’ve managed to grow despite the global pandemic in the most difficult conditions whilst adapting to new ways of working.
As we approach a new decade, we gave a lot of thought to what would be the full-service marketing agency of the future which led us to complete two strategic deals at the end of 2019 to enhance both the services we offer and our strength in depth. Our acquisition of One Polygon and the launch of Fuel Immersive literally gave us a new dimension and our clients access to virtual reality, augmented reality, mixed reality, and 360 creative.
Then, at the start of 2020, we completed our merger with The Ruckus to bring greater digital expertise, new directors, and shareholders into our business and launch a new office in Birmingham at Millennium Point’s STEAMhouse, Birmingham City University’s new £22.2m enterprise and collaboration facility.
At the time of making those deals we had our eyes firmly on the future but it would be fair to say that Covid-19 wasn’t on our agenda. Of course, we quickly became a collection of connected home workers and Zoomers rather than enjoying our new Birmingham and Plymouth offices), and we had to act quickly and draw up a different strategy and plan from the one we had coming into the year.
We’re proud to have come through such a difficult year which year on year growth: much of it owed to our long-term investments; plenty of it due to the determination and belief of all our team and a bit of luck too. Please take a look at our year in review video for a snapshot:
E-commerce was the major growth area for us in 2020 – up 98% on 2019. We signed over 50 new clients a grew sales like never before through our combined affiliate, SEO, PPC, and 3D design nous – something very few agencies possess in-house.
On our long-established marketing and public relations side of the business, we have grown our revenue by 53% whilst helping some clients to start-up, some to survive and others to accelerate plans.
Fuel Immersive has got off to a great start and it has been really exciting to help clients such as Drake’s Island and their stakeholders visualize future projects and developments whilst bringing a new dimension to online shopping experiences and innovative product design – we can’t wait to show you some of our great work soon!
Of course, a year at Fuel always gives us the chance to start careers and give back to our community. We’re proud to have appointed Lucy Elliott as our new affiliate marketing apprentice and she has shown some real potential. We took our support for Brighter Smiles into a 4th year enabling school children in Cornwall access to oral health education during lockdowns. At Christmas, we joined together with 25 local businesses to support families in need in Plymouth.
