2016 in review: Aaron Dicks, Impression
Aaron Dicks, the managing director of fast growing Nottingham digital agency Impression, looks back over the last 12 months.
What has been your highlight of the year?
The highlight of this year was actually our Christmas party, which happened last week. 2016 has been a huge year of growth for Impression, in terms of the number of team members, the size of our clients and the success of the business overall.
We were nominated for the prestigious UK Search Awards in two categories this year, which was huge for us. We presented on stage at the biggest conference in our industry. We’ve also welcomed a range of new clients, including some of our region’s best known brands, as well as continuing to work with long term clients who continue to see fantastic results from the digital marketing work we do.
To bring the whole team together to celebrate all of our achievements was a real pleasure, and further reminder to myself and my business partner Tom of how far we’ve come. We’re looking to 2017 with a great deal of excitement!
And your lowlight?
I’d say losing out in the East Midlands Chamber Awards having been shortlisted as Employer of the Year was a bit of a low moment. With so many employee benefits, including employee engagement programmes, training initiatives, budget for conferences plus social activities and an office complete with table tennis and beer fridge, we were sure we were in with a great chance! It certainly hasn’t stopped us striving to be the very best employer we can though, and our continually growing and thriving team is testament to that.
How do you think 2016 will be remembered?
2016 has been a pretty big year for Impression specifically. It’s been our first full year in our Stoney Street office and we’ve really settled into the much bigger space for our much bigger team. We also really developed our offering and moved into much more campaign driven marketing to enhance every one of our services. As an agency, we’ve really matured and our clients are seeing the benefits of that all the time. We’ve gone from feeling like a startup to feeling like a much more established business (without losing the fun of a start up of course!) and I think we’ll look back on 2016 really positively for those reasons.
From a search marketing perspective, it’s also been an important year. Google announced this year that it is creating a mobile index, meaning mobile websites and mobile friendly pages are indexed separately to desktop, signalling a really key change in focus. This means businesses without a mobile friendly website will really struggle in 2017. I imagine search marketers will remember 2016 as the year mobile really boomed.
In terms of business more generally, it’s obviously been an important year politically and economically, both here in the UK and overseas. For clients that do business internationally, we’ve supported them in ensuring their strategies for growth are still solid and that we do all we can from a digital perspective to enable them to thrive into 2017 and beyond.
Hero of the year (business or otherwise)?
My vote for hero of the year would go to my colleague Liam Wade. He might not be the best known person in business generally, but he has achieved some huge things this year for Impression and personally. He spoke at the globally renowned PPC Hero conference this year and has grown his paid search marketing team here too. The results he’s achieved for his clients have been fantastic and he deserves recognition.
And villain?
My business villain for the year would be any agency or SEO consultant still practicing black hat techniques. We’re all about ethical, sustainable techniques for business growth.
What’s your New Year’s Resolution?
My new year’s resolution is to implement some of the time management tools our HR consultant has suggested. I’m so passionate about the business that I have been known to work quite unsociable and very long hours, but with our expert team and loads of tools (including our own internal tool), I aim to be more efficient with my time in 2017.
