Swansway Motor Group has selected Escalla to provide apprentices for its new Digital Marketing Apprenticeship initiative.

The family-owned AM100 dealer group employs almost 70 apprentices across its twenty locations and chose Escalla, which is a local family-run business that specialises in digital marketing, to help it recruit a new crop of web-savvy talent.

Scott Smith, recruitment and apprenticeship manager at Swansway, said: “As a family-owned and run business, we were looking for an apprenticeship partner whose values would fit with our own caring, honest and proud ethos.

“We had three providers on our shortlist; two were national and one was a local firm run by a husband and wife team. After seeing and hearing presentations from all three it was clear to us that local business, Escalla, was best suited to be our partner; they were friendly, flexible and happy to work with us to create a bespoke training programme to suit our Digital Apprentices”.

The first five Swansway students, provided by Escalla, will be working towards the Digital Marketing Level 3 Apprentice qualification, with support from Swasway and Escalla staff.

The apprentices will initially be located at Swansway’s six Audi sites, before being rolled-out across the group’s twenty locations.

They will be involved in a range of activites, including social media, used car postings, and google analytics.

Since starting, the apprentices have already visited the head office of Auto Trader to find out how to optimise used car listings.

Emma Serventi, academy co-ordinator at Escalla, added: “We’re looking forward to working with a local business that sees the opportunities Digital Marketing offers. Our first five apprentices are now in their dealerships and we’re excited to see them develop."