Digital agency Status Marketing has beaten national competition and achieved 90% of its first year’s trading targets in just nine months, after completing a contract to help launch a new outdoor activities booking business for the UK’s biggest outdoor retail specialist, GO Outdoors.
The site, www.goactivities.co.uk, will supplement GO Outdoors’ existing £115m operation, which includes 33 superstores and an award-winning online shopping site.
The Status team has created an innovative e-commerce site for the new business, and is providing a range of other strategic digital marketing support following the launch.
Status was launched in April 2011 when the digital team at marketing services agency Different broke away, and the GO Outdoors project has helped to boost its plans to reach a £2m turnover in 2013. The business recently moved to bigger offices in the centre of Newcastle and appointed two new recruits, bringing staff numbers to 11.
Managing director Nick Salloway said: “We are extremely pleased with the partnership. GO Outdoors is one of the fastest growing retailers in the UK and it’s great to be working with such an exciting and ambitious brand.”
“Part of the reason we won the contract was our experience of working on the Visit North East England website. That was credited with boosting the £4billion that tourism adds to the regional economy, and showed that although we might be a young company in name, we are a team of experienced people with a first-class track record in delivering effective and focused digital marketing strategies.
“This is our biggest contract so far, and we could not have wished for a better start to the business. We set out some fairly aggressive targets when we launched so we are more than happy with the steady upward curve of contracts coming in, especially as they have all been via referrals.
“We have invested in online collaboration and video conferencing technology to reduce costs and improve our service to our national client base. We’ve also moved premises to give us more room to expand and recruited another developer and a user experience designer. We hope to create more jobs over the coming year.
“Our successes so far have confirmed our view that there was a big opportunity for a forward thinking team of digital marketing experts to create a new digital agency that could compete with the best the region and the UK has to offer.”
Speaking about the new website, Mike Griffin, project manager at GO Outdoors said: “The tender for the GO Outdoors activities site was contested by developers from all over the UK. Status was chosen because of an excellent portfolio, great feedback from clients regarding their management of previous projects, and a proposal that we felt offered significant added value. We have found Status to be a team who deliver on their promises.”
This is the latest in a series of contract wins for Status, with other recent projects including the launch of websites for luxury shopping magazine SheerLuxe.com and electric vehicle specialists Future Transport Systems. Other clients include Glasgow Caledonian University, Vinci PLC, and the Outdoor Industries Association. The company hopes to announce other contract wins shortly.
