Ever wondered what it’s like to work in Marketing? Here our London Campus Head of Marketing gives us an insight into a typical working day.
I’ve been working in Marketing for almost 9 years and have worked in a variety of roles. The thing I enjoy most about marketing is that every day is different, so it’s quite difficult to give a typical day, but it would probably go something like this:
I’m usually an early riser in the morning, it gives me time to wake up before I get to the office.
Often I pack some fruit for breakfast before heading out of the door at around 7am to get the train. Usually I scan through my emails on my phone throughout the journey in case something urgent has come in overnight.
After a 20-minute walk from the station to the campus, stopping to pick up a coffee on the way, I eat my breakfast and sort through my emails, preparing myself for the day. I like to get in a little earlier than the rest of the team to make sure I’m fully prepared.
I’ll use this time to review our annual marketing plan and our expected deliveries for the week, and their progress to identify any areas where we may be ahead/behind schedule so I can make any necessary adjustments in the team’s workload.
By now, all of the team are in the office, making it a lively environment to work in. The Marketing Team is split across two offices. Although we’re in different locations, I’ll usually speak to the team multiple times a day either by phone, skype or email – we’re always sharing new ideas and resources with each other.
We also share the office with our recruitment and conversion teams, it’s a perfect mix in as it means we can fully understand what materials the teams need and can easily communicate, making it easy for us to fully support each other.
The morning will usually include a couple of one-to-one meetings with some of my team. This is the opportunity for us to go through the different projects they are working on, address any challenges they may have, and act as sounding boards to try different suggestions and ideas.
Together, we’ll review current campaign performance and the different ways we can make improve them to perform more strongly.
On a monthly basis, we will have a conference call with one of our agencies. We’ll review different campaigns that are running, and feedback on the performance from our perspective, ensuring everything is optimised as appropriate and we are delivering ROI.
This is also when we can plan the month ahead, whether we are looking at new developments for the website, or we have new programmes which will need launch campaigns.
As part of my role, I’m responsible for managing our marketing budget, so at the start of each month I will receive a budget update from our Finance Team to review. I go through each line of spend to cross check that it’s in line with our projections and also to check that we’ve received all of our expected invoices from suppliers.
There is rarely a day that passes without a new request for marketing support, whether it’s an email, a phone call, or one of the team coming to see me in the office. The key with each new request is to understand the background to what’s being asked for. I work with the team to understand the objectives and identify how we can best deliver, which involves reviewing workloads, current materials and identifying time-frames.
I’ll also work with our counterparts at main campus to ensure that we are consistent in messaging used across the University. This may involve updating some messaging in a prospectus or amending messages used in campaigns.
I’ll usually eat lunch around now – either something from home, bought from one of the supermarkets around the corner, or for a treat, something from one of the food markets near the campus – there’s always a lot to choose from, pretty much every dietary requirement is catered for, and there’s options from around the world to suit every taste.
I have regular meetings with our Recruitment Managers and Heads of Recruitment to plan for the month ahead. This is a good opportunity for me to update them on the team’s projects for the month ahead, and check to see if the Recruitment Teams have any new requirements that will need support. It’s also another opportunity for me to gather feedback on how our messaging is performing in different markets, and identify gaps in our activities that we can resolve.
My afternoons are often when I try and focus on actioning anything from my meetings in the morning or delivering bigger pieces of work that need producing. It might be a monthly report for our Senior Management Team in London – which demonstrates all of the marketing activities delivered and the results of such to date. I’ll report on enquiry numbers, new platforms we’re testing, advertising spend and results, new materials, it’s very varied and rewarding to see the volume of work that our small team is able to produce.
When we have new materials being produced, I’ll usually have an inbox of new designs, adverts and campaigns to review. I’ll work with my team and our agencies to ensure that we are delivering to brief and that materials, designs, and messages are on brief, and on brand. The team will often all have some level of involvement in each piece that is produced – this helps us to ensure that we are producing work that is accurate, consistent and delivered to a high standard.
It’s time to pack up and go home, or in to central London to go and meet some friends for dinner. One of my favourite things about living in this city is that there is always somewhere new to go in the evening and you could never get bored of the food options available. Whatever cuisine you’re after, there will be something available somewhere.
And then it’s time to do it all again the next day!
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