2020: Wagada’s year in review
Cheryl Luzet - 17 December 2020
As 2020 comes to a close, it’s time for us to reflect on the year and its many highs and lows.
Even at the best at times, it’s been a challenging year for us all, not knowing what’s around the corner. And yet, it’s also been a time where we’ve shown real spirit and camaraderie to all pull together as a team, think outside the box and be flexible in order to adapt to new challenges and ways of working.
Let’s take a look back at our highlights of 2020…
A year of growth
New team members
Despite the challenges 2020 has thrown at us, we have increased our team by four to bring in experts across a variety of fields. It’s been great watching our team grow over the year and we’re excited to have brought on a new Social Media Manager, PPC Specialist, SEO Specialist and Business Consultant. Welcome to the team Sam, Akber, Millie and Andre – it has been great to have you all on board!
New clients
Alongside our new team members, this year we welcomed 30 new clients and projects on board. It’s been fantastic to work alongside clients from a whole range of industries, to develop new digital marketing, SEO, content, social media and PPC strategies, and watch their businesses grow and prosper as a result.
We’re excited to continue working with all of our fantastic clients in 2021.
New Wagada office in Cheltenham
This year, we also began the process of setting up a new office in Cheltenham, headed up by one of our senior management team members, Daniel Jenkins. We’re looking forward to the opportunities this will offer us in forming new relationships with businesses across the West of England.
HubSpot partners
Back in September, we proudly announced our certified partnership with HubSpot. We’re always looking for new ways to support our clients and working with this inbound marketing platform will help us deliver even greater value to our clients. Find out more about our partnership with HubSpot.
We went virtual
Along with the majority of the UK who waved goodbye to their offices in March, we’ve become accustomed to remote working life and welcomed the likes of Zoom and Teams as the daily norm. Every morning at 9.05 am2 on the dot (plus or minus the odd minute…), we connect as a group, ask questions of each other and discuss any pertinent updates. We run working support sessions with key members of the team every lunchtime to provide those looking for advice with the help they need and welcome ongoing calls and messages throughout the day to ensure everyone feels connected and supported. Whilst not ideal, we’ve certainly made the most of what’s on offer!
Webinars and training opportunities
We’ve hosted a number of webinars throughout the year across the team, covering a range of topics, from how to be a LinkedIn boss, to the top skills every social media manager needs to be successful.
Keep an eye out for some more exciting training sessions we will be holding throughout 2021, we look forward to sharing our expertise with you!
Virtual team building
Every Friday afternoon we’ve hosted an array of fun games and quizzes on Zoom to bring a little extra laughter and light-hearted banter to the week. From pub quizzes and bingo, to a Christmas quiz in November (much to Nick’s disappointment), we’ve grown to love a virtual quiz!
It’s been a great way to wind down after the working week and catch up with the team over a drink. Not to mention this has brought out the competitive side of a lot of individuals, with Shelley, more often than not, taking the lead each week (much to Dee’s disappointment).
This year we even took our annual pumpkin carving competition online. Congratulations to our reigning champion, Emily Walker, for taking the crown once again with her creative design.
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Wagada’s Christmas party
In true 2020 style, our Christmas party also went virtual this year! The evening involved a review of our year and successes, the Wagada awards and Secret Santa, along with a box full of goodies and craft cocktail making kits. We would have loved to have been together to celebrate our achievements of 2020, but the team thoroughly enjoyed the festive celebrations either way.
Zoom, you’ve been fun, but we look forward to hopefully returning to Wagada Towers in the New Year!
Pancake Race winners
Home-Start Hertfordshire’s St Albans Pancake Race has been taking place for 20 years and is something we always look forward to participating in.
It was a great afternoon and this year we were up against PrivateFly in the final of the walking race. For the second year running, Wagada were pleased to be crowned winners of the walking race!
In the final of the walking race PrivateFly v Wagada – and the winners are @wagada_stalbans 🙌#SAPancakeRace pic.twitter.com/AzXoqzNrQT
— Radio Verulam (@radioverulam) February 25, 2020
Prior to the event, we also got involved with the team at ITTEQ’s filming, which has now aired over in Japan. Well done to ITTEQ for winning the running race after coming to St Albans from Japan to participate, and to the rest of the participants for a fantastic afternoon!
Supporting Home-Start Hertfordshire
Our chosen charity for 2020 has been Home-Start Hertfordshire, a fantastic organisation supporting local families in need. Alongside our eager participation in the St Albans Pancake Race, we ran a Digi-Sprint webinar and took part in ‘The Big Grow’ over lockdown, with all proceeds going to Home-Start.
We hit 3,500 followers on Discover St Albans
The team at Wagada have been busy running the Instagram account, @discover_stalbans, and this year we hit a huge milestone and reached 3,500 followers!
It has been great collaborating with local businesses on Instagram this year and we look forward to working closely with new companies throughout 2021 to bring exciting giveaways to our followers.
To our team members, clients, friends, family, and followers, thank you for your continued support throughout 2020.
We wish you all a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year. Bring on 2021!
