I am delighted to announce that William Reed is officially Best Digital B2B Publishing Company 2021 as awarded in the AOP Digital Publishing Awards!

This Grand Prix award was by invite only to those media companies that had demonstrated consistence and excellence across all categories in the 2021 Awards.

Because 50 Best were finalists in the Best Publisher-led Social Initiative for their 50 Best Recovery Campaign (raising an incredible £1.29m to support the industry and charities) and The Grocer were finalists in Best B2B Brand (for their outstanding digital transformation), we were invited to enter.

The awards are judged by our peers, and the winner needed to provide evidence of a strong strategic vision, and demonstrate innovation across a portfolio of unique domains and audiences and a clear achievement against commercial objectives.

We are therefore winners because we met all the judging criteria after the unprecedented challenges the pandemic created, forcing us to re-evaluate both our business model and wider industry responsibilities in supporting the food and drink sectors.  With a loyal following and all of us working together, we not only provided ground-breaking content, but we also managed to financially and emotionally support the industry, and deliver excellent commercial results.

Our transition from predominately F2F and Print, to Online, reflects a cultural shift, with the strategic realignment helping produce record breaking Digital revenues (+31% YoY), alongside increased traffic (+50% YoY) and leads (+100% YoY).

Key stats from 20/21:

  • £1.29m raised by the 50 Best Recovery campaign – distributed across 200+ restaurants, bars, and charities
  • Milestone reached with over 61% of revenue coming from digital (30% in 2019)
  • 2020/21 digital revenue +31% YoY
  • Average pageviews +50.33%
  • Social Media following increased across all brands
  • Delivered 251 Online Events (+300% YoY)
  • +150k Online Event registrants and +56k attendees
  • Leads +100% YoY
  • Over 30k new registered users on The Grocer
  • Average client spend +24% YoY