So…2020. It’s fair to say, it’s not been the best year most of us have ever had! Like many businesses, we are ending the year a bit smaller than we started it. Understandably, many of our clients – like those who had to close their businesses for a while – reduced their advertising spend, or even put it on hold altogether.
However – being a ‘glass half full’ kind of a team, we thought we’d compile our highlights from this difficult year, to remind ourselves that it’s not all been bad, and that in fact we have achieved rather a lot between us. Here are our team’s ‘highlights of 2020’ plus a few fun facts about Ascendancy’s ‘possibly least predictable ever’ year in business.
James
- Personal highlight – more time with the children, and getting a 5-year home improvement project (mostly) done in a few months of furlough.
- Work highlight – less time with children and some grown up conversations again, now I’m back at work(!)
Emily
- Personal highlight – saved money, because I couldn’t go anywhere!
- Work highlight – this year we changed our monthly reporting schedule to allow us to spend more time talking to our clients and less time writing reports. It’s really helped us to build even stronger relationships with our clients.
Helen
- Personal highlight – spending time cycling with my husband – which I had time to do when all my hobbies were cancelled. He memorably commented that I ‘wasn’t as bad at it as he expected’.
- Work highlight – there have been many, actually (and some massive lowlights) but the key one really has to be the fact that I completed the renovation of our new office after 2.5 years of planning and stress. We even got to move into it, briefly, in between the two lockdowns…
Bethan
- Personal highlight – after moving in with my other half (+ family) I started a veggie patch while on furlough. I found it very relaxing, therapeutic and fulfilling, especially when it came time to harvest and eat what I had grown from little, tiny seeds. Ate the chilli yesterday and wow, it had a fair kick to it!
- Work highlight – Some fabulous feedback from a client about a Christmas blog post I wrote! I thoroughly enjoyed working on all the Christmas blogs, and felt that I had really improved compared to the start of the year, but the feedback from that one was the cherry on the cake.
Lauren
- Personal highlight – Buying my own little house and making it my own.
- Work highlight – Witnessing the increase in praise and recognition between team members. I think working from home has really made us appreciate how lucky we are to have a team that get on so well and have each others’ backs!
Jay
- Personal highlight – Getting into a relationship (it’s pretty much the highlight of my year)!
- Work highlight – Expanding my knowledge and earning a promotion
Alex
- Personal highlight – Having another child and getting better at DIY!
- Work highlight – Adapting to working remotely and getting stuff done probably as well as we did in the office before.
Steph
- Personal highlight – Finding new creative outlets such as my current pottery venture! #buymymugs
- Work highlight – It’s been a year of crazy user behaviour online and it’s been fun having the challenge of last minute adapting my strategies to suit.
Jon
- Personal highlight – Making the most of simpler things like bike rides, walks and spending lots of time with my niece.
- Work highlight – Helping customers progress with their online web projects that they’ve started this year, due to COVID making them think more about their online presence. And developing my design skills further.
Ascendancy ‘fun facts’
Did you know that….
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- Our clients collectively spent 35% more on Google advertising than last year! (We had fewer clients advertising – but the ones who carried on, did more of it than usual)
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- Our clients paid 26% less on average for each click than they did last year (due to lower levels of competition)
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- We worked with 201 clients overall
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- We shared 115,613 messages on Slack (!!!)
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- We hosted 169 websites
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