S-Ventures plc (AQSE:SVEN) Market Rocket Founder and Chief Executive Officer Matthew Peck caught up with DirectorsTalk to discuss what Market Rocket does, the acquisitions of two digital marketing agencies, the launch of a new digital marketing and PR offer and what we can expect to see from the company in the next year.
Q1: Matthew, could you just start by explaining who Market Rocket is and what the company specialises in?
A1: Market Rocket is a full service digital agency, we were founded in 2019 and we were focused 100% on Amazon at that point. Obviously, the reason for talking today is the move into different disciplines within the digital space.
I guess where we’ve always differed is to focus on top line growth but always with a massive emphasis and focus on bottom line profits, making sure that our partners and clients are always realising those two critical metrics.
We’ve worked with brands that are Fortune 500 brands, but then right down to market disruptors and start-ups. We really pride ourselves on being able to work on both of those sides of that scale and obviously tailor our services accordingly to that. We’ve actually been Amazon accredited with their Service Provider Network accreditation since 2019 and are now Meta and Google.
Q2: Could you tell us more about the recent acquisitions that Market Rocket has made, the two digital marketing agencies, and what that actually means for the business?
A2: My background is true eCommerce, if you like, so everything regarding online sale, focusing on direct to consumer. I’ve been doing that for nearly 15 years now, mainly focused on Amazon over that period and obviously seeing some great growth with Amazon but that’s now starting to change. I think we’re starting to consider different digital platforms and obviously the importance that they have in a digital strategy, be it social, be it new PR, be it Guerrilla marketing, be it a variety of different marketplaces that are starting to exist.
So, what we’ve actually done is we’ve actually acquired two marketing agencies, one specialising in PR and social media and the other focused on website development and PPC and SEO. What they bring to the table on day one is obviously a proven track record of success in those different disciplines that we feel that we can bolt into our Amazon experience, and also start to focus on these different areas and start to offer a full turnkey solution for our existing clients, the clients of the agencies that we’ve acquired and also new clients that we’ll bring to the table.
Q3: If we just drill down a little bit though, could you talk us through the launch of Market Rockets’ new digital marketing and the PR offer and what it means for both the company and for S-Ventures as a whole?
A3: Again, so I think by having a very strong presence on Amazon that we’ve currently got, and now being able to look at the different platforms that also plug into that D2C space, that will give us a great platform to build on internally, as we look to leverage different platforms, different consumers, different shopping habits, different trends, different bits of data, and start to aggregate that into a holistic approach that we can roll out for S-Ventures’ internal brands, which is obviously critical to SVEN and our growth and my role as Chief Digital Officer there. Also for our external clients and being able to bring that proven success to the table straight away.
Since we were formed in 2019, Market Rocket has constantly been asked and challenged to work in different bases. We focused on the Amazon piece because we wanted to own that area, I feel like we’ve now done that in a very short space of time. Our retention rate and clients that we work with I think all point towards that. Again, being able to bring in this holistic approach to D2C and, and different data sets and different buying trends and different access points to consumer, I think will be of massive, massive value to our internal brands, but also Market Rocket’s clients.
Q4: Now, the company, as you say, has a proven ability to deliver returns on investment on Amazon. Can you explain what this is for people who are not really familiar with that and how now you can have this service with new digital marketing and PR offerings?
A4: I think success on Amazon is very difficult, to put it in a very plain way, the reason for that I truly believe is that to succeed on Amazon and indeed any digital platform, the rules remain the same, is that fundamentally you need four key skill sets:
- You need the ability to understand the platform, and the various different aspects to managing products on there so account management,
- You need someone who’s incredibly analytical to run the advertising, bid management, keyword isolation,
- You need creative so videos, infographics, a variety of different creative graphic design elements to visually represent the product and stand out from your competitors,
- You then obviously need SEO and copywriting.
Now, those four skills are obviously very separate skills, and there is no one person in the world who could feasibly excel at all of those so I think it becomes very difficult for our smaller brands to recruit that type of talent. It becomes very difficult for our larger brands to build a team around that. As an agency and as a turnkey solution provider, we are able to offer those two things to those two very different clients.
I think those four pillars of success are what we will now look to bring into the agencies that we’ve acquired in the different disciplines, and we will be able to leverage that same methodology and that proven technique to, to equal success and really see it as a partnership with the brands that we work with and also our internal brands.
As a reference point on Amazon, there are over 40 different schemes that you can use to ultimately try and sell more of your product. Now, if those schemes are all used at once, there isn’t many products out there that have the margin to be able to facilitate enrolment in all those schemes. So, it’s about using the right scheme at the right time, be it traffic-based or be it conversion-based. I think those principles will come to the fore in the different disciplines that we’re now looking to take on and allow us to develop that strategy again to push top line growth, but also realise a bottom line profit.
Q5: Just looking forward, what can we expect to see from Market Rocket in the next year?
A5: Definitely more of us. So, as you know, we were acquired by S-Ventures in April, that’s really given us a springboard to really start to compete out there, get our name out there, start to work with an incredible calibre of client.
We definitely wanted to make big investments into our team, we made an investment early on to say that we wanted to be in Central London, we wanted to attract the best talent, we wanted to have offices based here permanently and not look to at cheaper avenues which I think other agencies do so definitely investment in the team.
Invest in our platform and supportive services so with our new areas that we’re going into, the different disciplines, bringing that into a holistic report and allowing our brands to make very strong strategic decisions, be it on Amazon, off Amazon, in the entire Market Rocket ecosystem, will definitely be incredibly important.
Continue to work with the biggest and smallest brands in the world. We pride ourselves, again, on being able to work at the start-up level and I think creating and maintaining an engaged audience through digital marketing on all platforms and selling everywhere, always is the key and where we want to be.
