News

Entertaining bosses of high-profile companies at its Nottingham office has raised the eyebrows of many neighbouring businesses for Love Media Sales – but it is testament to its rapid growth.

The marketing firm, based at Foxhall Business Centre, works with business-to-business (B2B) publications and global technology companies such as Adobe, Microsoft and Oracle by growing audiences. It has entered the Nottingham Post Business Awards ahead of tomorrow's deadline, in the small business of the year category.

Founder and owner Jordan Adams said: "The reputation we have in Foxhall is growing all the time and everyone seems to know us here. Other people are quite taken aback when they see the global marketing director of Microsoft coming to see us or the managing director of Royal Mail."

"It's been a very organic but fast-paced growth. I've been involved with a lot of companies in my life and have never seen a business grow so rapidly."

The firm was founded three years ago by Mr Adams, 36, who commutes from St Albans to Nottingham, where he used to live and believes is a prime location to build the firm. He previously spent 10 years working for major publishing companies, mainly in advertising sales.

Love Media Sales helps business-to-business (B2B) publishers and technology companies build their audiences via email and telephone. As an insight business, it analyses the buying habits of targeted customers and gains an understanding of clients' objectives and purchasing requirements.

Publishing companies can sell their increased online audience to advertisers, while tech firms can use the greater exposure to sell more products.

Mr Adams said: "Technology companies are increasingly becoming publishing companies because of the amount of content they produce and vice-versa, so we weed out where their next customers are. They might produce a white paper about email automation and just want MDs and bankers to receive it, so we do the heavy work to make sure that's where it goes."

"We only charge when we deliver results, so companies know they have nothing to lose. Our aim is to turn audiences into leads and leads into sales."

Mr Adams started with no office, saying it was just "me and a coffee table", and conducted meetings with partners in pubs.

Two years ago, he moved into a four-person office at Hamilton House, before taking up a larger 1,000sq ft space at Foxhall Business Centre, in Forest Fields.

Since then, it has upgraded twice more within the building as staff numbers have increased to 28, with the company now occupying Foxhall Lodge's largest office.

All recruits start at the bottom of the ladder and have the chance to move up, with no senior staff taken on board to date. Nine university graduates have been employed in the past year and Love Media Sales wants to take on another 10 staff.

The average age in the business, which has received funding from Santander and the Growing Nottingham scheme, is 24 and only one employee has left the company in the past three years.

The turnover for the year ending April 2015 was £479,000, with forecast revenue for the current year £750,000.
Mr Adams, who expects turnover to reach £1.8m in 2016-17, added: "My commute is painful but we couldn't have built this business if it wasn't for being in Nottingham. The profit margins we can make by being regionalised are far higher than London and we needed a company culture that's strong to gain momentum."

"We don't have to spend any time worrying about staff retention and it's a fun, vibrant and young place to work."
Love Media Sales worked with B2B publisher Sift Media on its telephone-related insights.

Commercial manager Stuart Pringle said: "The quality of their work is excellent. Not only are they good at what they do but, crucially, there is a cultural fit between our businesses which enables us to really make a difference for our clients."