Marketing agency Digitonic's pivot pays off with major growth

Glasgow-based smart mobile marketing agency Digitonic is boosting headcount after reporting “significant” recent growth and seeing turnover exceed £1 million in both June and July.

From left: co-founders Iain Wilcox and Grant Fraser. Picture: contributed.

The firm said that after the onset of the pandemic, it pivoted its strategy to focus solely on its key markets, and added 26 clients in just five months.

Additionally, two thirds of its year-to-date turnover has been generated since May, after the tech firm expanded its client base in North America and India.Indeed, it hit its annual turnover target of £5.6m in August – two months before the end of its financial year.

Chief executive and co-founder Grant Fraser said: “March and April were incredibly challenging months for us as a business and we knew we needed to adapt quickly. Since then, we’ve worked incredibly hard to ensure we were able to keep jobs safe and get all furloughed team members back to work as quickly as possible - resulting in some of our busiest months on record.

“In addition to the furlough scheme, we’ve also had access to support from Scottish Enterprise through its Pivotal Enterprise Resilience Fund – both of which we’re grateful for.”

The company has also tripled turnover in the last two years to more than £6m from £2m. Fraser added: “We were able to take a step back and refine our overall strategy, which led to us spotting several emerging international opportunities and resulting in 100 per cent of recent turnover coming from international markets.”

Digitonic will celebrate its tenth anniversary in April and currently has nearly 30 staff spanning London, New York and India as well as its Glasgow headquarters. The company is also recruiting for a number of senior staff.

“While the events of the last few months have undoubtedly been difficult across the board, our end to Q3 and start to Q4 really have given us hope that the future can be bright for other companies who are in the same boat we were back in March/April. The future looks incredibly exciting for Digitonic,” Fraser said.

The business last year sold a 10 per cent stake to one of its biggest clients, valuing it at £10m. It was founded by Iain Wilcox as well as Fraser, who each invested £2,000 to buy two laptops, two mobile phones, and settle the first payment for a small office in Glasgow.

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