Aycliffe Today Business AT Business Issue 37 | Page 19

The magazine for Aycliffe Business Park | 19
The Thrive team (left to right): Sarah Burns, Adam Robinson, Johnny Woods, Tom Mather,
Rachel Townsend Green, Reza Snowdon, Rachael Farley, Adrian Mokryj, Jake Brown.
Thrive director Johnny Woods is
excited about the firm’s future after
recruiting new members of staff.
marketing services to better suit the needs
of North-East SMEs by providing support and
delivery with paid social media advertising
strategies and PPC campaigns.
Director Woods told Aycliffe Today: “We’re
riding high on the back of a promising
2018, which has allowed us to focus on our
business development and service offering,
resulting in us being able to offer new
services for our existing and new clients.
“We have built really strong relationships
with our clients and pride ourselves on being
a business that people know they can trust,”
said Johnny.
“Creating a tight-knit team and making
sure that everybody enjoys working for us
and enjoys what they do has certainly helped
us, and we think we are fairly at the cutting
edge of technology.”
“It’s fair to say things are thriving at the
moment – and we’re happy to be able to
make two new appointments.”
Thrive maintains its status as a well-
established HubSpot Certified Partner,
allowing them to offer inbound marketing
services to SMEs hoping to create a strategic
content approach to their online marketing.
Johnny added: “These additions to our
service offering are an indicator of the
success we’ve had in 2018. We’re still proud
of our roots as a small branding studio, but
we can now offer so much more as well.
“The main thing about Adam and Adrian is
that, while they are both very good at their
jobs they fit in with our ethos.
“Rachel and I have both said in the past
that we worked for people and organisations
we didn’t enjoy working for. That’s one of
our main driving forces, that the staff enjoy
coming into work and have an enjoyable
time at work, and are good at building
relationships.
“We hire on personality as well as ability,
and making sure that we think people will
get on.
“That’s key for us, and on the back of that
we make sure we spend some social time
together.
“Christmas is obviously a big one for us.
We do some team-building, and the odd time
when we get the chance we down tools and
head off for a bite to eat.
“We have fast food Fridays, and every
lunchtime we try to and get round the table
and have lunch together.
“Then we’ve got health plans in place,
regular reviews, and we develop from within,
and Rachel and I have a very open policy that
if anyone is having any issues, everybody
knows that they can bring them to us.
“Just a general culture code within the
place.”
While the new appointments have been
welcomed on board, the directors are also
keen to ensure that the existing team play a
key role in Thrive’s exciting future.
“We’ve not only developed our service
offering – although that is key to securing
our business’s future and growth strategy
– we’ve put lots of work into securing and
future-proofing the team we employ through
training and implementing new employee
benefits,” added Johnny.
Thrive’s content team is enjoying a number
of training courses to build on their new
offering as Adwords Qualified and Bing
Certified specialists, ensuring they remain at
the forefront of the marketing landscape.
Furthermore, employees have all been
provided with flexi-time, a health cash plan
policy including both dental and optical
cover, a retail scheme offering discounts and
rewards for major retailers, gym discounts,
plus extra holidays for long service.
This is also being developed with
an exciting new venture agreed by the
company’s directors to offer its team a
calendar of social events in 2019, including
trips to UK cities for “time-out days” and
industry exhibitions, plus paid-for trips for
everything from the cinema to go-karting.
All of this comes as the agency repositions
itself as a ‘digital growth agency’, offering
the promise of a two-step approach for a
successful partnership.
Johnny explains: “We’ve had lots of
lengthy conversations to ensure that we
acknowledge the full capabilities of our
talented team, which has resulted in us
identifying as a digital growth agency.
“Our team has long offered innovative
and professional digital solutions, including
our inbound marketing offering and the
exciting new opportunities with PPC and app
development, it’s only right that we allow our
brand to develop as our team does.”
The digital growth agency has identified its
niche supporting North-East SMEs who are
trying to implement creative and marketing
changes to better reach their sales and
marketing growth goals, an area Thrive has
already had significant success in for local
organisations.
Thrive firmly believes in building strong
relationships as a key to success for both
the client and itself, proven in their long-term
connections to some of our area’s most
prominent businesses, including Stiller, ROF
59 and SCH Site Services.
Johnny concludes: “At the end of the
day Rachel and I have both worked in
organisations we haven’t enjoyed and we
have strived to create a workplace that is
positive, all-inclusive and continually aiming
to be better.
“In the last 12 months we know we’ve
made massive inroads to doing just that with
Thrive and the incredible team, so being able
to offer new employee initiatives and service
offerings based on our employees’ keen
interests is a massive sign that we’re going
in the right direction.”
Discover Thrive and its digital offering at
thriveability.co.uk