Clare Grove, Director, recently shared her thoughts on 2021 and her hopes for 2022 with Kent Life Magazine.
Looking back on the past year, what have you found most challenging?
Working remotely and creatively is always a challenge; it is so much easier to swing round in a chair and get the team thinking than fire off an email or do via Teams. That said, we’ve adapted to it and enjoyed a fair bit of video pacing and arm waving!
Our clients are at the heart of what we do and to have not met with them as much – or in some cases, at all – has been tough as we have some great and longstanding relationships. It’s like being cut off from friends! We picked up a new client in Lincolnshire just before the pandemic and due to their remote setting and dubious Wi-Fi, our contact was purely through weekly calls and regular emails. When we finally met it was like meeting long-lost friends. There was a lot of laughter and rather a lot of wine!
And what achievements are you most proud of?
As well as developing marketing strategy for clients, our team runs events throughout the year, including conferences for up to 300. We have run 80+ online events, including a week-long online conference and exclusive Six Nations events for VIPs. In-person events come with a high-level of stress, but online events can throw all sorts of issues including presenters on school runs, Wi-Fi outage in the whole of North London and squeaky speaker chairs. All of this is out of our control, and I am so proud of how hard the whole team works to ensure that none of these things impact the delegate or guest experience. They make things look effortless – and that’s no mean feat!
We have not only survived the pandemic, but also grown our team and our client base in the past 18 months. It has been a huge amount of work, but I am so proud that we are still here and stronger than ever!
What are your plans for the business as this year develops?
In-person events are a big focus for us this year as our clients – and their guests and delegates – are desperate to return to live networking and learning. Being online has opened up a world of possibilities for hugely flexible hybrid and on-demand options, which we are excited to explore.
We expect our marketing activity to take on a new direction this year too, with the demands of clients and consumers ever evolving. Online was huge in 2021 as customers were confined to barracks; we expect the customer experience – either digital or live – to take centre stage in 2022.
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