A BOLTON town centre marketing agency is growing so quickly it has notched up a record annual turnover and is planning to move to bigger premises.

Relative Marketing, with offices in historic Wood Street, was set up by brothers Robert and Simon Barlow. They had both worked with their father, John, in the well-respected Manchester city centre agency Gillett and Bevan Ltd.

In 2011 Robert and Simon decided to start their own full-service agency back in their home-town with just one part-time staff member – Gail Escott on admin and accounts. They took care of marketing for their existing clients including Hartley Botanic and Gabriel Ash, whilst adding new clients.

With the addition of digital marketing expert Martin Bradley they were able to further help companies including Tyrers Coaches, builders A Connolly Ltd and antique expert Paul Reeves. The business moved to larger premises in September, 2014 and took on apprentice Joe Swarbrick in 2015.

In the last six months, they have also started working for a host of new clients including Tapaz Restaurant, Stanmore Insurance and Dot2Dot, Auto-Tools, German Kitchens Direct and Nobilia GB which provides kitchens for London property developers.

Relative has just won a 12-month contract with Horwich-based training experts Alliance Learning. Alliance’s Marketing Manager, Chloe Ramsden, commented: “We’re very much looking forward to working with Relative Marketing. They are a local company like ourselves and it’s great to keep business in the town. We look forward to continuing to raise our profile with their help and support.”

Relative’s end of year turnover of over £650,000 exceeded targets and they now want to expand into adjoining offices in the same building.

A delighted Robert Barlow stated: “We have decided to raise the bar a lot higher for this next financial year, which I’m confident we’ll hit as we have had our best two months on record.

“We have invested a large sum of time and money into some new technology for digital marketing and marketing automation and I believe this will really set us apart from other local agencies and help us compete with bigger agencies throughout Manchester.”

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