Leicester marketing agency reveals ambitious plans

The firm is looking to double workforce after its first year.

A Leicestershire Marketing Agency has launched an ambitious growth strategy after their first successful year of trading.

Altitude Marketing Ltd, based in Loughborough, has announced plans to double their headcount in the next 12 months and more than quadruple their revenue to surpass £1m.

Directors and Co-Owners of Altitude, Laura King-Berry and Tom Bates, had worked together on projects previously, whilst working for other companies.

Tom said: “This year has totally blown my expectations out of the water, it just feels like everything I’ve learnt in the last 16 years of working with other projects is coming together to make an incredible mix of people and business.

"Working with Laura is brilliant, we are scarily so aligned on things it’s like we know what the other is thinking before they do. I’m super excited for 23/24 and working with this brilliant team.”

Then in 2021, when Tom was looking to partner with another agency to add extra services to his already growing digital marketing business - Studio Attico. He reached out to Laura, who had successfully launched a Freelancer business and had grown her client base to a point where she was looking for additional support.

The pair soon realised their visions and values were aligned - and thus, Studio Altitude Ltd (more commonly known as Altitude Marketing) was born and a great partnership was formed.

After sharing similar frustrations on agencies they previously worked with - Tom and Laura wanted to take care of how they built their agency, primarily focusing on how they can best support their clients by generating ROI, leads, increase in revenue and better brand awareness.

Initially, they decided to trial-run the agency for a couple of months to see how things progressed before formally integrating. In just those first few months, they won several exciting projects - the business was growing thick and fast - leading to the official launch in January 2022.

Since then, they have far exceeded their expectations. Their forecast predicted a £100K turnover for the first year, but ended with a boastful £500K (run rate), with a prediction of reaching £750-£1M by year-end of 2023/2024 and a £3M turnover in the next three years.

The main goal is sustainable growth, but the focus will always remain on the results generated for their clients and the culture they have built through the team.

Naturally, their team has also grown rapidly from a workforce of two to nine in just a few months - with the intention of reaching a minimum of 20 by year-end.

Their five-year plan means their team will have close to over 40 people spread across different office locations in Leicestershire. There are then plans in place to create an exclusive networking group in summer 2023, with an annual event for local businesses to get together.

They also run podcast “Business on a Beanbag” in which business owners far and wide have a platform to share their challenges and success stories is already gathering momentum.

Laura commented: “Having the time to stop and reflect on our first year was quite overwhelming, what we have achieved, created and experienced has been incredible.

"The team I get to work with every day have become like family, the relationships we have built with our clients have been truly unique and I still can't quite believe we have launched our own podcast.

"Mine and Tom's partnership has grown into a really strong friendship and I am honestly grateful to be on this journey with him, we have the same values and passion for what we do and I cannot wait to see what the future holds for Altitude.”