When was Citizen first established and how did you become involved with the agency?
Citizen was established in 1987 by three lecturers from Kidderminster College who decided to practice what they preached by setting up a video agency. They landed their first big client, Dixons, soon afterwards, working on the high-street electronics retailer’s training videos, scripts, filming, editing, etc. Over time, as the agency grew, its clients needed a wider range of services, such as graphic design for training materials and digital for online portals, so eventually Citizen became a full-service agency.
I first joined in 2003, when I was looking for an apprenticeship in graphic design. I called all the agencies I could find in the Yellow Pages to see if they had any vacancies, and Citizen called me back as an apprentice they were about to take on had fallen through, which naturally worked out well for me. Unfortunately, the Government stopped offering graphic design apprenticeships shortly after I started, so Citizen allowed me to research different courses to go on instead. I chose to study for a degree at the University of Worcester on a part-time basis, and Citizen sponsored me for this.
How has the digital marketing sector changed since you started with Citizen and how has the agency evolved in this time?
When I first started, we had one email address for the entire creative studio – a team of five – which I would be responsible for checking every couple of hours as the studio apprentice. Whenever we wanted to send anything to print, I would use the Integrated Services Digital Network [ISDN], which would usually fail a couple of hours into sending. This meant I often ended up having to drive a CD with the artwork on over to the printer.
In my early years at Citizen, we were working on a project for T-Mobile, which was called ‘Web n’ Walk’ – a new concept that would allow users to browse the internet on their phone and bid on eBay. It seemed like a novel idea, but at the time we really wondered whether or not it would take off. Now, of course, we know that it did, but it was really exciting to be a part of it right from the beginning.
It was also around this time that the directors at Citizen knew that they needed to evolve by forming a digital side to the business, so they hired developers and we started building websites and offering email marketing. Since then, digital has been a steady area of growth for the agency, and has mainly been driven by customer demand.
The last 12 months have really shone a spotlight on digital marketing and it’s been our biggest growth area this year for both our corporate clients and local small and medium-sized enterprises [SMEs]. The pandemic has forced many businesses to adapt from face-to-face sales to online and, in response, we have grown our digital team with two new members starting in April. On top of that, we have become a HubSpot partner, which means we can help our clients grow their businesses online in an increasingly competitive space.
What are your main responsibilities as client services director?
My role as client services director sees me working alongside our fantastic team of marketing account managers to ensure we deliver high-quality and consistent results for all our clients. In addition to helping our existing clients grow and succeed, I am responsible for business development and pitching the agency for new work. I need to ensure I have my fingers on the pulse when it comes to our clients’ trends and that I understand the challenges they are facing and how we can assist them. I also support the upskilling and learning of the team, given that marketing is changing all the time, and work closely with the creative and commercial directors to lead the business through planning and prioritising goals on a quarterly basis.
What services does Citizen provide and which types of clients does the agency service?
Today, Citizen’s service offering includes design, digital, print, events, video, marketing and strategy, and we have two different types of clients. The first type is the larger, corporate, clients, such as BT, EE, Europcar, Collect+ and Paypoint, while the second type is local SMEs. It’s great to have this mix because it keeps us creative and we can impart learnings from our larger corporates to our SMEs too. Having to learn different skill sets and keep on top of the latest marketing trends for a variety of clients means that we are constantly learning and improving our services.
How has the Citizen client base changed and grown over time?
We have always had a core of London-based corporate clients who have formed the main part of our work, as well as a small number of SMEs. We have put more focus on growing our local awareness over the last couple of years, but this has happened on a much greater level over the last six months, which has seen us win a tender with Worcestershire Business Central and work with more local SMEs as a result.
The coronavirus crisis has unquestionably been devastating for many businesses across the UK. How has it impacted Citizen?
Though some of our clients were impacted by COVID-19, which has had a knock-on effect on Citizen, the crisis did make us really focus on the direction of the business last year. We always wanted to work with local SMEs and do more in the way of marketing strategy. We used the time to upskill our team through consultancy with the Chartered Institute of Marketing [CIM]. We made an effort to be a better strategic partner for our corporate clients and to offer marketing support locally.
We saw new opportunities for growth, and were able to reach more people through holding interactive events via Zoom. We tendered for work that would get us in front of local businesses and put a big focus on growing our digital team.
It is fair to say that we have used the experience of the pandemic to invest in Citizen. Not only will this help us to recover from coronavirus, but also put us in a good position to help businesses with their biggest marketing challenges in the long term. Being a partner of HubSpot represents just one of the investments we have made, both in our future as an agency and the future of our clients.
Have you seen a greater shift towards digital marketing as a result of the pandemic?
Yes, the change has happened very quickly across all of our clients, and digital has become the primary place for sales and marketing for some businesses now. We’ve also seen businesses either add digital marketing to roles within the business, or hire a digital marketing apprentice. We’ve been able to offer a support programme for those businesses that have employed apprentices, and are committed to helping them to apply what they have learned for the specific requirements of the business they work in.
What are your plans for growth over the next 12 months and beyond? How do you aim to achieve this target?
We have two specific plans in place. The first is growth within our corporate client base, which is likely to be a mixture of creative campaigns and support with digital execution.
The second is growth within our local business clients through a soon to be announced project, which will provide light-touch marketing support, with further support available through our marketing packages or apprenticeship support.
We also see HubSpot as a way to make our own digital marketing work harder for us and potentially for our clients through the partner programme. We’d like to continue to grow the team to support us by expanding our digital marketing efforts, potentially in the content development area.
