Motive’s 2020 Review: Challenges, Triumphs & Highlights from a Year Like No Other

Goodbye 2020. You definitely will not be missed.

This year has been a challenge for everyone and the team at Motive are no exception. Like everyone else we have learned to adapt to the new realities of life in a global pandemic. For us that meant we spent most of the year working from home.

Incredibly we've been more successful than ever before in terms of results, with more than 10,000 backlinks being won for our clients during the year - our highest ever total in a single year. With many retailers forced to close their physical stores 2020 has been a boom time for online retail and as a digital PR agency we have been fortunate to benefit as many clients chose to invest in their online marketing this year.

Now that the year is almost over I thought it would be fun to look back on some of our highlights of 2020. So here we go on a month by month breakdown of Motive's 2020.

Back in January we tripped into the office without any idea of the pandemic that lay ahead. We kicked the year off in style when Beyonce wore a pair of shoes from our fashion client Public Desire - much to our excitement. The start of the year is always a great time for health and weight loss stories and we worked with former Gogglebox star Amy Tapper to tell the story of her amazing transformation.

By the time February came round we were all concerned about Coronavirus but still had no real idea of what was about to come. We had fun working with former Made in Chelsea star turned nuclear energy entrepreneur Richard Dinan on his plans to half the journey time to Mars. Amongst lots of coverage we were particularly pleased with this feature in National Geographic.

After that things started to get serious as the pandemic really took hold. March saw us release our pot hole study for longstanding client LeaseCar UK and continue our digital PR campaign for Spicentice with some interesting case studies. But by the end of the month we had (mostly) abandoned the office after Boris ordered all those who could to work from home.

Determined to focus on the positives we actively went out to celebrate some of the great initiatives our clients were involved with for their communities. We were able to highlight how My1stYears had donated 320,000 meals to needy families. And we were able to secure a BBC News spot when our friend and client Richard Dinan turned his nuclear energy facility into a manufacturing hub for PPE for the NHS (pictured).

BBC news screen discussing UK ventilator production — Motive Client Richard Dinan appeared on BBC News to discuss PPE

By the time May came around the media was desperate for some good news and we were able to help client My1stYears celebrate the arrival of a new baby at 10 Downing Street with a goodie box for the PM's son Wilfred Johnson.

June saw us celebrate the success of another client as lockdown led to a boom for swimming pool installer Compass Pools with The Times covering the story among others. And as the summer went on it was largely a case of business as usual with campaigns getting great placements for clients such as Stress Free Car Rental, The Money Pig and Net Voucher Codes.

As summer turned to autumn we had fantastic success with our Halloween study of the UK's most haunted roads for LeaseCar UK with hundreds of coverage items including this great piece in The Sun.

The last two months of the year were particularly strong for us with Christmas campaigns for New Voucher Codes and Gardening Express doing particularly well.

Infographic stating when to put your Christmas tree up

And right at the end of the year our Fresh Air For Sale campaign for My Baggage has been a big hit with hundreds of items of coverage and links already logged including this one just today from The Guardian. Making it one of our biggest campaigns of the whole year and helping us reach 10,000 client links for the first time in a single year - all natural high authority editorial links and nothing paid for!

So we close the book on 2020 and look forward to a new year ahead. Hopefully a year which will see us able to return to the office at some point. A big thanks is due to all the great clients who have worked with us and been a part of our story this year and of course a big thanks to all our lovely team and the families who have supported them. I can't say I'm sorry to see the back of 2020 but I feel very fortunate to have come through it stronger than ever with a fantastic team and some exciting content marketing projects already planned in for next year. See you then.