A small team you can always get hold of.
Glide is a small team in Essex. We film content days for businesses, creators and brands, and find UGC creators for brands that need more. The people you meet before the day are the people who film it.
Meet the team
Amber shoots and edits, Abbie runs the set, Mike directs and replies to every enquiry, and Matt looks after the monthly work.
Amber Cannon
Shoots and edits
Amber films every content day and edits what comes out of it. She is a UGC creator herself and knows a lot of others, which is where our creator network comes from.
Abbie McDonnell
On set, and a creator
Abbie runs the set: props, the shot list, release forms and the photos. She also makes beauty and skincare content as a UGC creator.
Mike McDonnell
Founder, directs the day
Mike plans the day, runs the interviews and keeps an eye on the clock. He also reads and replies to every enquiry.
Matthew Ludlow
Looks after the monthly work
If you want the footage posted and advertised each month after the day, Matt keeps that moving and keeps you updated.
Our story
How Glide really started
Mike taught himself web design straight out of school, building sites for local businesses and hand-coding everything the hard way. It did not pay, so he took the sensible route instead: five years as a Quantity Surveyor, pricing jobs and standing on the client's side of the table with the same builders and trades a design-and-build studio deals with every week.
Then a serious illness ended that career almost overnight. Rebuilding from it is where Glide comes from. (Mike wrote a book about that chapter if you ever want the full story. These days he is the fittest he has ever been, and the business runs the same way.)
Client zero was family: a small supplement brand called Proflax that needed to sell online properly. The results came, word spread through local businesses, friends and family, and “Mike's Marketing” quickly became Glide, because the market was full of slow, unreliable agencies and Mike wanted to build the one known for fast, sleek, frictionless work. Websites, SEO, growth, proof and clear delivery are still the heart of it.
What changed is how we work. AI now helps in the background with research, first drafts and the repetitive build work, so a small team can move faster and cost you less than a big agency would. A person still decides the strategy. A person still checks it works. Mike still signs off every site.
That is the whole point. You get experienced, founder-led work without the agency bloat. AI is not the thing we sell. What you get is a website that keeps bringing in enquiries: built properly, found on Google, and improved month after month instead of left alone the day it goes live.
In 2026 we changed what we lead with. The part of marketing most businesses never get round to is filming their own people, so content days are the front of Glide now: a small crew, a day at your place, and weeks of footage of your team doing what they do. The websites, SEO and ads are still here for anyone who wants them afterwards.
Why “Glide”?
We chose the name because so many web projects feel slow, painful, and overcomplicated. We do it differently. From first brief to launch, the process is smooth and visible, no hand-waving, no surprises, no agency drama.
Working with us should feel effortless, like gliding through the air.
The awards on the shelf
Two so far: New SEO Agency of the Year 2024 at the Corporate LiveWire Innovation & Excellence Awards (that is the certificate, and the grin), and Most Client-Focused Web Design Agency, Essex 2024 from SME News. We would trade both for one more client saying the work paid for itself, but they look good on the shelf.
Who we work with
Three groups. Businesses with a place and a team worth filming: clinics, salons, gyms, venues and design studios. Creators with brand deals coming in who need more content than they can shoot alone. And brands who want product content and creator content from one shoot. Amber and Abbie are both UGC creators, which is where our creator network comes from. We are based in Essex, we film across Essex and London, and further afield when the job suits it.
What makes working with us different
How we work
The people you meet are the people who do the work. Nobody hands your job down to someone you have never spoken to.
We're selective about the projects we take on so we can deliver the level of service and quality we promise. If we don't think we can build something genuinely useful for your business, we'll say so.
Ready to plan a content day?
Tell us what you want filmed, where, and what it is for. Mike comes back within one working day.