Where do you know me from?

Marketing freelancer in Milton Keynes

I’m obsessed with behavioural science and every podcast featuring Rory Sutherland. I love brand marketing, I love digital. Where have I appeared from and why are you reading my blog?

When I began my career in marketing in the noughties it was all about booking newspaper ads in the papers with McCann Erickson, fax machines were still a regular feature and direct mail was everything, I remember being wowed by a Maltese cross mailer sample and getting the bug for how paper felt (if you know, you know). 

My career in marketing has been brilliant

I got my first email address when I started Uni where I studied Business Studies with Marketing. My favourite modules were International Marketing and Retail Marketing, by this time I had worked for every large supermarket brand behind a counter or sat at a checkout. I didn’t realise how my first class grade in International Marketing would come in handy almost 20 years later when working for a non-profit, but it did.

My marketing world began before CRMs, social media, GDPR, Google Analytics, podcasts, Mailchimp and Survey Monkey were new kids on the block. Marketing was all about print, I loved it and I still do. It’s more than 20 years since I first logged into a website CMS in sunny Stanmore, still doing it every day, I must love it.

Marketing experience and expertise

So, it all started for me in London… and I wouldn’t change a thing. If you are fresh into marketing, or looking for a marketing job, I can share with you that I went to a bunch of job interviews in London, then I had two on the same day, and got offered both jobs – typical. One was Phones4U (they sold mobile phones in the papers) the other was Protocol Teachers – I picked the recruitment company, which shaped my career, life-long friendships and more, most importantly when I got headhunted by Reed and joined the best marketing team I’ve ever worked in, I found my tribe and recruitment in the early 2000’s was a young marketers dream! All the doors opened when you mentioned you work for Reed. We had collabs with Nintendo, I heard my press release through my headphones when I was on the bendy bus, indulge me, it was a real moment! We worked in the building that had housed the Beatles, James Reed has his penthouse at the top and we were all on a rota to do lunchtime reception duties – even him. I did everything possible to get out of it, but it did keep us all connected to the jobseekers (that’s what we had to call them, brand guidelines and all that).

Budgets for merch, boat trips, fancy hotels, cool restaurants, trips around the country, F&M wine and whole salmons hampers for Christmas were also part of the good old days (stupid bribery act). What has remained consistent is events, connecting with people, AIDA, Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, segmentation and targeting, innovation and so much learning every day. 

Who have I worked with?

Brace yourself, I don’t sit still for long, which is why I think freelancing suits me, I love a challenge, a project and making a big impact.

My marketing bucket list – completed it!

✔ London

✔ In-house

✔ Agency

✔ Global brands

✔ B2C

✔ B2B

✔ Innovators

✔ Youth market

✔ Education

✔ Non-profit

✔ Freelance

✔ Entrepreneurs (a few bonkers ones)

I have embraced new challenges, pushed the boundaries, been a beta tester, and been at the beginning of so many amazing developments in the marketing world, although I have to be honest TikTok gets on my wick, is that because I’m in my forties. Who else remembers going nuts for microsites?

Where am I now?

In my marketing prime of course! I have been there, done that, seen it, read it, watched it and built on it. I believe we can never stop learning or predicting and taking an educated punt (I said Bing would have its time and here we are, it has seen real growth in some target audiences). I am a content marketer, a digital marketer (on the organic side), a social media manager and I train people. I am a mentor, can’t tell you how much I love it! I mentor a new marketer and I work with a non-profit in Milton Keynes to mentor teenagers (the best part of my week!). I love to share what I know, help new marketers, help new business owners and I love slotting myself into a team to fill a much-needed to be filled gap, to get the marketing doing what it should be.

How long is a piece of marketing string?

I say this a lot, too much probably. I know, and you probably know, you can do marketing day and night, you can have an army of marketers in-house and outsourced, there is, was and always be more marketing that can be done. Marketing is about priorities, making good, informed decisions, being creative, taking risks and learning from the outcomes, especially the good ones!

Marketing advice

Marketing podcasts to tune into:

The Marketing Meet Up
More Than Digital Marketing

My fave pages to follow on LinkedIn:

Famous Campaigns
The Drum

Folks to follow on LinkedIn:

Luan Wise
Andy Lamber
Dave Harland
Watch out for Neil Patel – Google ‘steal Patel’ (you think you know someone).

The best free marketing advice I can give you:

• Look at your analytics!
• Don’t listen to all the marketing hack people online they’re full of rubbish
• Marketing is long-term, the results won’t be immediate. Slow and steady will win the race.
• Plan.
• Follow up.
• Social media is not the be-all and end-all of marketing.
• Good marketing doesn’t come for free – people or tools.
• Marketing without a strategy is like weeing in the wind.
• Trust your marketing team, they know what they’re doing even if you don’t understand it.

And if that seemed very indulgent I am sorry, but I did enjoy my trip down memory lane, thanks for joining me. If you’d like to work with me head to the contact page, you can read more blogs, they’re not all me me me or you can scope out my services to see if I would be a good fit. I think those are enough choices for now!

Image: Felix Hanspach