Marcus Richards
Distinctly is a market-leading independent digital marketing agency, specialising in SEO, PPC, Digital PR and Content.
Since our foundation in 2009, we have built a team of experts who deliver best-in-class digital marketing solutions to a range of B2B and B2C clients including Arsenal FC, BoConcept, JVC, Kenwood, Neos Networks and Wilkinson Sword.
We have a proven track record of driving phenomenal growth for our portfolio of ambitious brands. Our aim is to create superstars and achieve commercial brilliance. We have been a Google Premier Partner since 2013.
Tell us about yourself?
Post-university, I worked as a digital marketing specialist for DSGi before moving on to agency life as the SEO and PPC lead for a specialist web agency. I was interested in how marketing was transforming from traditional to digital, and thought it would be an exciting area for future growth and development.
If you could go back in time a year or two, what piece of advice would you give yourself?
I would say look outside the box more, as with creative thinking and new perspectives, there are always positives to be found, at some of the most unexpected and trying times.
What problem does your business solve?
We help companies to connect with their target audience online, and ensure they have the relevant technical and creative digital marketing tools at work to drive their business forward and achieve maximum growth.
Whether delivering website migrations, PPC strategy or digital PR campaigns, we seek to challenge the status quo on a daily basis and drive innovation across our core disciplines to achieve the greatest business outcomes for our clients.
What is the inspiration behind your business?
A passion for SEO and PPC led me to set up the business for ambitious clients wishing to supercharge their growth through digital marketing.
I founded Distinctly in 2009 because I wanted to work in an agency that sought to achieve greatness. Greatness for its team and its clients, by delivering a smart, premium service and allowing everyone a chance to shine.
Ultimately, digital marketing helps you to get greater exposure for your business and generate more leads. But it involves so much more than that, and our team of specialists ensure all our clients deliver their audience, engagement, reach and resource objectives to the maximum.
Distinctly is an agency that invests in people and their development, invests in industry leading tools and drives innovation across all our areas of our expertise.
What is your magic sauce?
Trust. Distinctly has established itself in a competitive marketplace and grown quickly into a leading search marketing agency in the South-East.
We have achieved this through a determination to deliver the best digital marketing services available.
Our clients and colleagues trust us to deliver, and this together with our work culture and desire to develop and grow our team’s knowledge and expertise makes us a company that is delivering a premium service that ambitious brands want and desire.
What is the plan for the next 5 years? What do you want to achieve?
We have recently updated our brand and relaunched our website. Together with a renewed marketing plan to reach new audiences and engage smarter with existing ones, we plan to build on our success to grow and develop our services further.
We will continue to investing significantly in our team, and through our Academy Program that develops motivated, curious graduates into digital superstars.
Our team have clear career paths based on their specific strengths and passions, allowing them to grow and develop, and use their knowledge and skills to achieve the best results for our clients..
What is the biggest challenge you’ve faced so far?
The digital marketing agency space has always been highly competitive. The seismic change prompted by the global pandemic threw up new challenges, but it has also brought exciting opportunities.
Clients have faced new obstacles and now have added issues with supply chain problems and labour shortages too. We therefore react to their evolving needs and hone our strategies and offerings to pivot services for the changing demands that our clients and the industry require.
We innovate our services with new tools and strategies across all our services areas, so we can continue to achieve success for our clients through intelligent, results-driven digital marketing.
How do people get involved/buy into your vision?
We want to work with ambitious businesses who want to supercharge their business growth. And we want to employ and invest in our specialist staff who strive to exceed expectations for themselves and our clients
We have considerable experience in the ecommerce and business services sectors, and innovative ideas for future needs, so ecommerce and service brands looking to reinvigorate their reach and rankings, should get in touch.
In addition to SEO and PPC, we also offer digital PR and content services which offer additional routes to market. If you wish to find out more about our work and services, visit our website at distinctly.co
