A potent partnership of marketing in the Midlands have teamed up again to bring a range of services squarely focused on helping businesses to grow.
Sarah Groves and Paul Houston are the new directors and driving forces of Catalyst, the Birmingham-based marketing agency.
Sarah and Paul are bringing a fresh approach to Catalyst which they describe as Growth Driven Marketing (GDM), aligning clients’ operations, sales, and marketing to ensure their business is geared for growth.
They will be building on an impressive past record that has featured delivering marketing success across multiple sectors for a wide range of businesses including Sun Microsystems, Center Parcs, Open University, G4Security, EasySite, and Tolo Toys, to name but a few.
Sarah and Paul have built strong reputations as heavyweights within the marketing sector and the Midlands has been buzzing with speculation about a new venture.
That has now been identified as Catalyst and the business partners intend to use their significant experience, knowledge and skills to deliver Growth Driven Marketing success for their clients.
Both Sarah and Paul are Cranfield-educated and qualified as experts in HubSpot and, along with their talented team, they will be using the world-leading inbound marketing and sales software to help their clients attract visitors, convert leads, and close customers.
The agency, which also has a base in London, was the original brainchild of Martin Smith and John Worton, Joint Chairmen of the hugely successful Shire Business Group. Catalyst will continue to gain the benefit of those foundations as well as the significant business influence and expertise of Martin and John.
It is the perfect springboard for Catalyst’s future, with Sarah and Paul at the helm.
Sarah, who will be particularly responsible for day-to-day operations, said: “We will ensure our client’s business is in front of the right prospects, at the right time with an offering that the market wants and the client can deliver.”
And Paul, who will be directing business development, added: “Marketing alone won’t help a business to grow. For marketing to make a difference to the bottom line, it needs to be aligned with operations and sales. That’s what we provide with Growth Driven Marketing.”
A fundamental reason for Sarah and Paul being focused on the development and delivery of Growth Driven Marketing at Catalyst is to address what they see as the shortcomings of many traditional marketing agencies.
Sarah said: “If I rewind to the start of my career, successful marketing was placing an advert in a relevant publication, it was getting as much coverage as possible in the media, and it was spamming people with direct mail. Back then we were measured on ‘eyeballs’.
“Wind forward to now and many agencies claim that creating a website and spamming people with email is successful marketing.
“The truth is successful marketing today depends on how you define success.
“Our ideal client isn’t someone who wants marketing; it’s someone who wants to grow their business.
“We will then help them to integrate their sales and marketing strategies and take into account the entire customer journey. We will ensure they achieve results – real business growth.
“If an agency or marketing professional is talking about different marketing channels or creative ideas or increases in website traffic they have achieved for other clients – it’s time to walk away.
“At Catalyst, we are talking about objectives focused on business growth.”
Think Larry Page and Sergey Brin. Or Ben Cohen and Jerry Greenfield. Sarah and Paul are shaping up to drive the agency as a true Catalyst for clients’ business growth.
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About Catalyst
Catalyst delivers more than just marketing. We help to shape businesses for growth by aligning their operations, sales and marketing strategies. This approach ensures our clients have the right foundations in place, they sell what they can deliver, and that marketing drives the right kind of opportunities. We call this Growth Driven Marketing.
We specialise in working with small to medium businesses from a variety of industries and with unique target audiences. However, they all have one thing in common… big ambition.