The Drum Awards for Marketing - Extended Deadline

-d -h -min -sec

Open Mic Agencies

Ibexa welcomes two UK agencies to its partner network

Ibexa

|

Open Mic article

This content is produced by a publishing partner of Open Mic.

Open Mic is the self-publishing platform for the marketing industry, allowing members to publish news, opinion and insights on thedrum.com.

Find out more

June 18, 2021 | 6 min read

Ibexa has added two UK digital agencies to its global ecosystem of Ibexa partners – Civic and Equimedia.

Ibexa on adding Civic and Equimedia as partners.

Ibexa on adding Civic and Equimedia as its partners

Based in different parts of the UK (Edinburgh and Swindon), with a very different client base, Civic and Equimedia both highlight the importance of a cultural fit as one of the principal reasons for partnering with Ibexa.

Adding these two agencies to the roster was a simple and straightforward process requiring commercial and technical certification. The union was a natural fit because of their shared business vision.

Partnering with Civic

“We start from UX, UX design,” says Greg Rouchotas, Civic’s managing director, “and then development, both in PHP and Java, as well as hosting and support. We use creative thinking, digital innovation and collaborative problem-solving (and 20 years of know-how) to help our clients communicate better with their audiences and achieve their goals.

“We’re more than a digital agency – we combine skills and experience to improve the way people experience all their everyday interactions with our clients, from UX and design to development and hosting, all under one roof.”

Security and data compliance are important aspects of Civic’s offering because many of its clients are large governmental bodies, such as the National Audit Office and the Independent Police Conduct Authority.

“In fact, we are UK market leaders in cookie consent management,” adds Rouchotas. “Our tool, Cookie Control, helps organizations to manage and use cookies. The tool has become the de facto solution for the UK public sector.”

Rouchotas was approached by Ibexa at the end of February; a matter of months later, Civic became a certified partner.

He continues: “Unlike most agencies, we evaluate in detail and when we’re interested, we go for it. There is no point dragging things out. We want to start getting the word out about Ibexa as quickly as possible.”

Rouchotas was particularly interested in Ibexa DXP’s depth of functionality, as Civic is seeking technical certification to get started with three developers, but they have plans to add more in due course.

He says: “With the instincts and confidence of its strong technical base, Civic developers looked under the hood of the Ibexa technology, and took it apart to understand it well.”

Civic developers are familiar with the Symfony framework on which the Ibexa DXP is built.

Ibexa’s synergy with Equimedia

Equimedia is a full-service digital marketing and performance agency, founded in 1999, focused on helping clients achieve online business growth and marketing cost efficiency. They do this by offering clients customer-focused, UX-driven website design and build, management and site optimization services, as well as the full suite of digital media planning and buying services.

The agency has experienced rapid growth over the past few years. Ross Britton, Equimedia’s website experience director, explains: “Maybe five years ago, there were lots of specialist agencies popping up: UX specialists, SEO specialists, pay-per-click specialists and media agencies, to name a few.

“What we now find is that the clients that work with those specialist agencies are realizing they are getting a fragmented digital approach. The story is: ‘We have paid search and SEO, but not managed together. We have analytics separated out. We are spending a lot of time managing relationships – and worst of all, our digital marketing is not as well-connected as it should be.’ This is where clients come to us for a solution.”

Paired with Ibexa – who also offer a more holistic, in-the-round approach to digital transformation – it was a natural fit.

The other synergy to the partnership is the mutual focus on B2B and B2B companies, which have had to pivot to D2C during the pandemic.

Britton says: “We’ve been winning a lot of B2B business; there’s clearly a huge deal of investment happening in B2B companies at the moment in terms of digital transformation and innovation.

“Equimedia understood early in the Covid-19 crisis that certain types of B2B and B2C business would be badly affected. We launched a new value proposition called Equi Connect – a D2C solution that helps businesses whose distribution networks have been cut off to connect directly to their end consumers. It was a lifeline for many of these businesses.”

One of the strengths of Ibexa DXP is its extensibility in allowing businesses to diversify their sales channels – and the innovative and agile response of Equimedia to the pandemic caught its eye.

Equimedia saw the advantage of a DXP that natively embeds e-commerce and personalization.

Britton says: “Having the option to add e-commerce to a site quickly allows you to pivot to D2C a lot faster than it does for other platforms. Going direct to the customer can be quite an undertaking for a lot of businesses, but having the e-commerce element on top of the offering is something that makes it more agile.”

Looking forward

Ibexa’s ability to cut to the chase is something that appealed to both agencies. After a first meeting in March and sales training in the same week, followed by technical certification of the first two developers in May, Equimedia’s partnership with Ibexa was official.

“We have a similar strategy, goals and culture, which translated into these very fast decision cycles,” Britton says. “Our clients appreciate this too, as they want to see change happen fast and measurable ROI. And Equimedia and Ibexa are ready to make sure that happens.”

Join Ibexa at its Engage 2021 event on June 29 to hear how the company and its partners can help evolve sales channels to serve buyers’ needs.

Open Mic Agencies

Content by The Drum Network member:

Ibexa

Ibexa helps B2B companies to stay relevant and succeed by transforming traditional sales strategies into frictionless buying experiences

Find out more

More from Open Mic

View all

Trending

Industry insights

View all
Add your own content +