Marcus Richards
Padua Communications is a content marketing and PR agency working with B2B and B2C companies to help them with long-term brand awareness and short-term sales campaigns.
We work with marketing managers, business owners, and agencies, offering a wide range of content and communications services.
Founded in 2009, we’ve worked with over 165 businesses across industry sectors, including engineering, additive manufacturing, data and analytics, telecoms, lasers and photonics, to create high quality content, including blog posts, thought leadership articles, videos, ebooks, case studies, and brochures.
We care about our clients’ businesses as much as they do. With our years of industry know-how and at least one of Padua Communications’ owners actively working on every account, we offer a first-rate, diligent service.
Tell us about yourself.
I’ve had so many jobs—I’ve worked in retail and hospitality. I was a teacher. I’ve been a journalist, a radio presenter, and a producer!
I also worked in content and PR agencies for around 15 years until I set up Padua Communications in 2009.
I wanted to set up an agency that would be able to offer clients real value for money, especially as we were in the 2009 recession. From my previous experience in agencies, I didn’t want to be pigeon-holed into one type of service.
You can’t do PR without an understanding of marketing, and content for social and online needs to reflect those marketing and PR messages. I wanted to provide a service that saved clients time and money.
Our content can be tailored for online or offline use, and whenever we can, we write and place stories in publications that best suit a client’s target customer. That’s one of our USPs.
If you could go back in time a year or two, what piece of advice would you give yourself?
Move more! We worked some long hours during the pandemic, and I always felt better if I did some dancing or got outside! And breathe…
What problem does your business solve?
We work with businesses to refine their messages or their stories. On the whole, I would say the main value we offer is helping to shape campaigns.
Most businesses are so focused on delivering the product or service that they forget to look at how they are seen.
What is it about them that makes that connection with a customer, that builds that trust? Part of that is product and service, but there is a lot more—culture, experience, ESG, communication.
We help craft the story so it is more manageable to tell—and for customers to hear. We’re really good at building that story and also dissecting it so that it can be layered and built upon as a company evolves.
What is the inspiration behind your business?
We help organisations be smarter with their communications (internally and externally) to enable them to build their brand, get more sales, and retain and attract staff.
Personally, I wanted to run a business so that I could do 50:50 childcare with my husband-we’ve owned the business since it started and we have worked together for 8 years now. I wanted more flexibility and creative control than I was getting working for other people.
What is your magic sauce?
We really care in a world where a lot of agencies don’t. We’re really curious (I think it’s the journalist in us!) so we love getting to know our clients’ businesses so we can be proactive with ideas. We’re also not extortionate—we’re not the cheapest because we offer a lot.
But we like working with SMEs and businesses like ours where every penny counts. I also really like working with businesses of this sort of size because you can really see the impact we have. That gives me a lot of pride and satisfaction.
What is the plan for the next 5 years? What do you want to achieve?
We are looking to grow and we are hoping to take on some apprentices to pass the knowledge on. But mostly, we want to continue to do what we have offered for the past 13 years—we love what we do!
What is the biggest challenge you’ve faced so far?
We got started in a recession and are about to hit another one! We’ve had a pandemic. I’ve had a baby since we set up (she’s now 8!)—we haven’t changed course too much and our brand (culture and values) are pretty similar now to when we started.
Having said that, I think to run a successful business, you’ve got to be adaptable and good at being prepared for lots of change. You’ve always got to be looking forward-anticipating what’s coming up. I love that part of being a business owner.
How do people get involved in or buy into your vision?
As I mentioned, we work with businesses of all shapes and sizes, so anyone who needs some help shaping and sharing their story should reach out to us. We have some great packages to enable us to work with different budgets.
We are a family business. Our brand values are caring, creative, resourceful, trusted, proactive, ethical, positive, and curious. If you have similar, come and say hi. We’d love to find out more about you.
