How has your career path led you to marketing the Microsoft Windows Phone?
My career started out at Iceland. Not the country unfortunately, but at the food store and it was a valuable lesson of how to work and how to lead people from an early age – straight after sixth form I took a year out as my dad was suffering from leukaemia, I worked full time and was promoted through the ranks quite quickly. Managing 30-odd people and co-ordinating all of that was a valuable lesson early on.
With my dad getting better, I headed to university to study Journalism and I fulfilled my teenage aspirations of becoming a sports journalist (covered non-league football around the Wessex region). It wasn’t until six months in I decided I needed a job with more purpose, ambition and accountability. So I buggered off travelling in 2011 and subsequently jumped to the ‘Dark Side’ on my return and achieved a distinction in my Public Relations MA in 2012, with a dissertation timely titled ‘Tweeters, Twits or Twats’; becoming a bit of a social media nerd in the meantime.
During the end of my MA course, I became Avery Dennison’s first-ever Digital Marketer in the UK and was responsible for writing SEO copy for Amazon. Although it was a good learning to kick off my digital experience, I wanted bigger. I saw someone well-known in the social media world tweet about a job offering and tweeted him back and got a job at a digital agency called 33 Digital.
The next thing I knew I was being interviewed for a job at Microsoft and got the Social Media Community Manager role looking after commercial channels. It was a fantastic position and for anyone who wants to understand customers, get into social. It’s amazing the impact you can have internally too.
After 20 months in that role, I moved on to be the Windows Phone Marketing Manager, covering ATL advertising. It is a much broader communications role, but a thoroughly enjoyable one. I have also been lucky enough to be a part of the Marketing Academy for the previous year and it has helped my maturity in my role ten-fold.
Why did you choose a career in marketing?
I didn’t. It was accidentally stumbled upon, but it was the career I perhaps should have taken. I’ve always wanted to work in communications; journalism, PR, social etc – but marketing, it appears, in modern time, has brought lots of communication channels together to change the way we see business. And that’s where my passion is: communications. From marketing to customer services to PR, everything relates back to one focal point: engagement. If you understand ‘engagement’ then all communication channels can work together to drive the correct business outcome.
So it may not just be a career in ‘marketing’ anymore, but I’m definitely keen for a career in communications.
What do you think makes a successful career in marketing?
Knowing digital and social straight off the bat did me wonders and add a PR creative thinking mind to the mix, it has provided me with a view quite different to many of peers – it just proves to me that you need many different minds working together to build healthy tension to come up with the best ideas to achieve the best business outcomes.
I can’t necessarily say what makes a ‘successful’ career in marketing, as I do not think I’m a success, yet. Although I must insist that hard work, being focused and being humble at every opportunity will help you make bigger strides. One of the mentors at the Marketing Academy spoke to me about ‘trajectory’, and because I entered the industry slightly later than the majority, it doesn’t necessarily mean I’m behind everyone. Life experiences, ranging from my dad’s cancer to travelling down under for 4 months, have given me a bigger sense of maturity and humility, as well as seeing the positives and opportunities. You also need to create your own luck. I spent countless work experience hours (unpaid) writing, interviewing, and learning but kept my money topped up working at Iceland on weekends all through university. I was able to get my step in the door, but you do that by creating opportunities.
When I joined Microsoft, I had a very good manager who got and embraced my personality quickly. She not only helped me grow my personality to have a positive influence on others, but was able to give me a platform to perform to my optimum best and she would ‘rope me’ back in if I was getting ahead of myself. She knew the business, and she knew how to get the best out of me from the off. Having a successful career means having those people who believe in you for what you are. They see opportunity, and hopefully, potential.
And who is a great example of this?
There are far too many names to name here in the communications world. However, with the countless of Marketing Academy mentors I have met, humility is one trait that sticks out.
What do you think are the main challenges facing marketers today?
The biggest challenge will be the nature of transparency and the learning of how digital really works, and I mean how it really works. More people need to understand how to use data properly, how to understand how customer journey is developing and not to forget how important ‘traditional media’ is and the impact it can have. More needs to be done to challenge the communication industry all-up. It is ripe for some real big disruption.
How do you keep up with the constant stream of innovation in marketing comms?
As a big Twitter nerd, I tend to follow those who are ‘in the know’ and with only being in the world of ‘real work’ (post-uni) three years, those who I have learned from the most are the people that I am consistently learning from still.
Innovation comes in many forms and working for a company like Microsoft certainly helps you to see what is possible when it comes to tech. I speak regularly with ‘Internet of Things’ and developer guys, as they are always on the button when it comes to new and exciting stuff.
In terms of developing ideas and coming up with new concepts, I would recommend reading widely. I read the Guardian (for my sins) every day on the train into London – not word for word – to get a good overall of the world we live in. You never know what you may read and where ideas come from. But forcing yourself to read things that you’re not accustomed to helping your broader thinking.
Working in a social media job previously has certainly helped as well as I still often browse Twitter every 30 minutes or so. It’s a powerful medium and it’s the research tool that you have never paid for.
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