End of Quarter Fun!

As we get to the end of the first quarter of 2024 (we know, time is flying!), we wanted to share what we’ve been up to here at Sherbet Donkey. We always look forward to the start of a New Year because we are constantly on the go and striving to be even better than the year before and we’ve definitely been keeping up the pace so far for 2024!

January

We love January here at Sherbet Donkey, the beginning of the year is always full of excitement and intrigue. Our staff return from their extended Christmas break, refreshed and ready to take on the year. January for us is the month where we plan for the year ahead and set goals we want to achieve.

We began January as we meant to go on with five live vacancies. Our growth has been unstoppable over the previous years and it’s not something that appeared to be slowing down as we entered 2024. Every department has grown significantly over 2023 and we know this is going to continue this year with job postings in development, SEO, PPC, internal marketing and administration.

Clients’ success

January saw us start working with a multitude of new clients on many different projects, from SEO and branding to new website development. We also saw some of our end of year starter clients seeing some fantastic results as we went into the New Year.

Clients that had a successful start to the year were:

Rise Scaffolding – They started SEO with us in December 2023 and have gone on to see 690 increased keyword position movements across 13 tracked keywords with two now on page one. They’ve seen a rise in 105 organic users since starting SEO. Our SEO strategy has increased their organic clicks through to their site by 171% and so much more.

Rollings Renewables – Rollings Renewables started their SEO with us in November 2023 and since coming on board they have seen 708 keyword positions increase across 13 tracked keywords. In the first three months of their SEO with us here at Sherbz, we have improved their organic traffic by 3,710% – from 10 users to 381 across each period. In those same three months, we also improved impressions from 57 to 2,310 and organic clicks from one to 168.

February

With Feb being the shortest month of the year, we typically feel snowed under with the amount of stuff going on here at Sherbz and even with the extra day, the month still flew by. February always seems to be one of those months where everything is happening, from awards ceremonies to charity events, it’s been a month full of excitement for us.

The Signature Awards

The very first of the month saw us attend the Signature Awards, where we were nominated for three different awards, an improvement on last year’s single nomination. The night saw nine of the team head to The Vox in Birmingham for a night of celebrations, entertainment and delicious food. The evening celebrated Acorns Children’s Hospice and the work they do for families with children needing palliative care, with money being raised for the organisation in a silent auction, where guests had the chance to bid for items such as signed football shirts or even a trip to Bali.

As we were nominated for three awards, we spent the first half of the ceremony waiting to find out our fate. We watched the first two awards pass us by with the hope that the final award ‘Enterprise of the Year 2024’ would be ours. As it came to our last nomination, we held our fingers crossed and it paid off. We were awarded Enterprise of the Year for 2024, an improvement on SME (small and medium enterprise) of the Year for 2023.

Pancakes and Valentine’s Day

At Sherbet Donkey, we’ve always wanted to make sure our staff don’t miss out even on the most basic of celebrations. Since our founding, we’ve always celebrated Shrove Tuesday with pancakes! Every year our lovely Lauren cooks pancakes and provides toppings for everyone to overindulge, with savoury and sweet options for everyone to enjoy and even, for those who want to be a bit gross, have savoury and sweet together.

On Valentine’s Day, we try to spread the love as much as possible in the office. We regularly encourage staff to have gifts sent to the building and even to bring each other presents to celebrate one another. This year saw our head of development bring all the girls some chocolate brownies (sorry guys), the girls absolutely loved them and demolished them very quickly!

The Great Rainbow Bake for the Rainbow Trust

We decided this year we would try and raise money for a different charity chosen by our staff each month. So, for February, we decided to take part in ‘The Great Rainbow Bake’ for the Rainbow Trust. The Rainbow Trust provides support for children with life-limiting or life-changing conditions, as well as those who need palliative care and their families. A charity that is close to one of our staff members’ hearts, so we thought it was a nice way to start our monthly charity events.

We asked some of the staff here at Sherbz to bring in brightly-coloured bakes. It was up to them whether they wanted to actually bake something, or whether they wanted to claim something shop-bought as their own. The theme was as bright as possible, so we told them to think of all things sprinkles, food colourings and anything that looks like it might give them a sugar rush and have them bouncing off the walls.

Our staff didn’t disappoint when it came to this task, there were plenty of cakes to go around! From brightly colour rainbow cakes, rainbow cookies, cookie pies, brownies and so much more, it’s safe to say our staff’s eyes were definitely bigger than their bellies. We raised a brilliant grand total of £135, which just shows how much our staff do love a good piece of cake (or two).

New starters

February has seen lots of interviews for possible new starters here, with our five current vacancies slowly being filled. As we are constantly growing at a rate we can barely keep up with, it was time for someone to finally help Lauren with managing and supporting all the staff and of course, helping our CEO Loki in everything he needs to do. The very lovely Mia joined us towards the end of the month and was thrown straight in at the deep end, having to share the office with the very rowdy sales and marketing team – we’re surprised she’s not run away from the sales boys and their random questions all day, every day.

March

Edging closer to spring, March brought us lighter nights, a few warmer days and spring feels that we all absolutely loved and got us excited for the rest of the year ahead. March also gave us more new starters, more birthdays, charity events and so much more.

More new starters

After all the interviews in January and February, it was inevitable for us not to have new starters for March. As the company has been growing, there has been more emphasis on internal marketing for Sherbet Donkey as we continue moving forward. As our current in-house designers spend most of their time working on behalf of our clients, it was recognised that the internal marketing team needed a highly skilled graphic designer with a diverse range of skills in other areas of marketing. Tyler, a fantastic graphic designer with brilliant previous experience within an agency joined our team, bringing some great skills to the table that are sure to be highlighted over the next quarter as he fully settles into his brand new role with us here at Sherbet Donkey, if he can cope with the noisy sales team.

March also saw the lovely Ash join the SEO team as an SEO Specialist to help our team of superstar specialists continue to smash our client’s goals and targets out of the park. We are so excited to see how well he does and how much our SEO team can continue to impress our clients and exceed their expectations.