We would like to take this opportunity to provide a short update on what has been happening at Azzurro-Blu as the New Year approaches. It has been some time since we wrote a Blog and we know we should write more often. Although our commitment to Social Media keeps people informed in a general sense, our Blog gives us the opportunity for more in-depth comment.

It has been a challenging year. This has been true for most businesses in the North East economy. However, we intensified our own marketing efforts from Q2 onwards and this translated into a strong second half of the year.

We set some specific targets and have achieved some 80% of them. Examples of these include: We now host over 100 websites. We now have a broad website portfolio with a significant depth of experience in complex e-commerce projects. We improved the technical capability of the team by adding more programmers to match our level of marketing capability. We started working on our own SEO profile (We had focused on direct marketing at startup because of the SEO competition in our space. But – a bit like the tradesman whose wife complains nothing gets done at home we had worked SEO successfully for others but not for ourselves. And so since starting in September we have made good progress). We have incorporated some interesting consultative projects into our portfolio. So all in all it has been an exceptionally busy year with good progress made on many fronts. None of this would have been possible without the skills, imagination and diligence of the team.

The bulk of the team has been together for about four years now. Some of the team worked for an affiliate company and spent time successfully building other businesses before a range of circumstances saw the need for Azzurro-Blu to be born. Added to our new team members, we struck an alliance with Aberdeen marketing agency Fresh Ideas that we believe was useful for the clients of both parties. Whilst Fresh Ideas focused more on small and medium-sized businesses and startups this allowed us to collaborate on some good projects.

Perhaps the most interesting growth area has been our consultative marketing projects. It isn’t easy persuading a business that nothing major is going to change from a marketing or sales perspective without a budget. But that truth has enabled several clients to seek the external support required or to substitute internal effort for external support. 

Usually, marketing transformation starts with a new plan or the review of an old plan. But as they say in most walks of life it is good to have a plan. And that is certainly true in marketing. Our particular USP of having the experience and ability to devise AND implement an effective marketing plan has meant that any marketing materials we produce are created and reviewed with a marketing objective in mind. We believe it is this focus that has driven our growth in 2016.

We have some exciting plans for next year. To all of our clients in particular we would like to thank you for working with us this year and we take this opportunity to wish you a Happy and Prosperous New Year.