Happy first birthday to us … what a year!

So 2009 turned out to be the best ever. It looked so different this time last year. Back in the summer 2008 I had the great idea of starting up my own marketing agency. Well after 10 years of working for others the timing felt right. The next few months consisted of careful planning, branding, networking and the likes. It was exciting and the future looked rosy. Then wham, the recession hit. There was a moment when I considered putting it all on hold and waiting until the economy picked up. But I’d done so much work and we were ready to roll, with a couple of clients already on board. So in my usual way, I thought f*ck it, what have I got to lose? And Red Cube Marketing was borne, on the 1st Jan 2009.

Back then it was purely a marketing and pr agency. In fact I didn’t start using Twitter until the end of January, but I soon realised that to succeed, my agency needed to integrate traditional and new methods. So I spent the first couple of months immersing myself in the wonderful world of social media. I’d been using social networking sites and blogs for years, but I have to admit, when I first tried Twitter back in 2008 I couldn’t understand how it could be used for business. Oh how wrong I was. After two months of learning from the best and developing a strategic social media offering, I was excited about how much more I could offer my clients with this new communications tool.

With no financial backing (bar a few personal savings) it was a tough start. Even tougher given the recession and cut backs in marketing budget. As a marketer, I really needed to talk the talk. My brand needed to be built and established. Let’s face it, if I couldn’t do it for my own business how could clients trust me with theirs? It was pretty scary, but on the other hand I had a great opportunity to test the new social media offering on my own brand. So I opted to use just social media and seo as my primary marketing activities. And boy has that paid off. I now have a proven social media model to use with clients, an established brand, been named the UK’s 6th influential comms professional on Twitter (ok so these tools are a bit touch and go as they’re based on followers, retweets etc and I don’t fully buy into them, but after only a few months of using Twitter it’s still a pretty good achievement), winning a local entrepreneur of the year award, writing the social media and blogging chapter of a book by the fabulous Shan Preddy entitled ‘How to run a successful design business’ (published later this year), speaking at a number of events on social media and, the holy grail, gaining 5 clients directly through Twitter, 2 from my blog and 1 from Linked In. In fact social media has accounted for 60% of my revenue in 2009. Not a bad start.

So what next? 2010 is all about growth, delivering quality work and continuing to innovate. I spent a lot of time in 2009 gathering a top team of associates and consultants to work with my clients and we’re ready to go with a bunch of new projects. We’re joining up with a creative agency called Mat Dolphin so that we can offer an inhouse design service (well, it makes sense) and we’re currently looking for bigger office space in Soho where we plan to develop a create hub offering everything from branding, design, planning and strategy to pr, social media consultancy, copywriting and seo. A one stop shop if you will. We have some fantastic clients on board and we’re keen as mustard to do some great work in 2010. And to all clients, a huge thanks. We’ve enjoyed working with each and every one of you and will continue to do our best to deliver the results you need.

2010 has a lot to live up to if 2009 is anything to go by. I’m excited.