Ever wondered what creative marketing involves? Well, look no further - we've got a post telling you all about it, including how your typical day would be structured, tasks you would be carrying out and so on!
If you have ever thought that a career in marketing might be for you, and wondered what it involves then this post is for you. We interviewed the Cambridge based marketing consultant Chloe Ambrose, who owns The Creative Strides. She chatted to us about how she became interested in the role, the tasks it involves and advice she has for aspiring creatives!
Ready to face another productive day! Photo Credit: Chloe Ambrose
Chloe's Background
Chloe studied media production at university, after she had known from a young age that she was interested in the arts and creativity. "When I was at school I always had an interest in the arts and I happened to be getting better grades in media." She added: "So after having a really great teacher I thought, you know what, I really want to study media at university."
At university, Chloe decided to specialise. "When I went to university, I studied script-writing and TV because I wanted to try lots of different things." She added: "The course enabled you to try radio, graphic design, film, and then you could choose which one best fit you."
After studying at university, she decided to move into marketing as a career. "When I left university I tried to get into the marketing and advertising world, and use social media as a stepping stone."
Chloe's typical working day
Now that Chloe runs her own business, The Creative Strides, she has to organise how her working day is structured. "I check my clients accounts, so the people I have on contracts, I will check their social media, just to see if they have anything I need to act on straight away." She gave examples of things she might need to act on, such as unhappy customers or questions she doesn't know answers to. "One of my clients is a plant lady, so I don't know all of the fancy names of every plant under the sun, unlike her, which she does."
However, she said that every working day is different. "Each day is different, if I'm honest, there is never a day that is the same, and that's what I love so much about what I do." She gave some examples of other tasks she might work on throughout the day, which include building brand template profiles or writing content, and much much more. "So, chatting to people, talking to perspective clients, updating my profile, my finance sheet, there are so many things that I have to do each week."
Client Examples
Chloe has worked with a variety of people, including the owner of a floral design business. "She built this brand around creating floral stories, or creating your story in the form of flowers, and she wanted to communicate her brand more creatively to her audience." She added: "We talked about, if your brand, your business was a song, what would the song be, what would the lyrics be? How would I feel listening to it? We built her brand from there."
Chloe worked with her to change the logo and looked through her social media, giving her pointers to improve. "Together we came up with a stronger brand, which was good fun."
However, Chloe is normally on contract to look after peoples social media for a certain amount of time. "So the way that my services work, are that I have either got one-off packages, where I can give somebody a creative social media report." She added: "So, rather than just a social media audit, it is like a creative audit, so it's my way of coming on board and saying, these are the social media things you can do better."
"So they can either come on board for a report, or a one-to-one and then i've got people on contracts as well."
Photo Credit: Chloe Ambrose
What Chloe enjoys the most
"So, creativity certainly gives you the freedom to project how you see the world," said Chloe. "It gives you the flexibility to create whatever you want to create, so whether that is you finding solace away from the world, so escaping from the world, creativity."
Chloe loves the fact that because she runs her own business, her creativity is on her own terms."I don't have anybody judging what my version of creativity is." She added: "Anybody who works with me, will work with me for my version of creativity, if you work with a different social media manager or marketer, then their creativity might be different."
She feels that creativity is something that is unique to each individual, which no one can take away. "It's such an individual thing, creativity, and it makes it so much easier to be a business owner, that nobody can copy what you do, even if they try to copy you because they'll never have what's going on up there, they will never have the experiences you went through."
Chloe's Job Application Advice
"You need to advertise yourself creatively." She added: "Really work on your personal brand because if you're somebody who says, I want a creative job, show me you're a creative person." She said this would involve making a job application more imaginative, to help you stand out against other candidates. For Chloe, this was sending across her work and introductory videos."I would send videos and CD's of my work, I put all of my videography show reels on there." She added: "I sent them a video, each and every one was personalised, I would sit at my camera saying "Hi there, I'm Chloe Ambrose, this is what I know about your company and this is why I would like to work with you."
She also emphasised the importance of making sure that your application is as creative as it can be. She said: "If you're applying for a creative job, but not doing it in a creative way, that's already saying to somebody, you're not a creative person." She added: "You probably are a creative person, you just need to come at it, in a unique way."
Photo Credit: Chloe Ambrose
Chloe's Advice on Starting Out
Chloe said that the way she picked up her skills, is by simply learning on the job."I think the way that i've learned is getting stuck in straight away." She added: "Being chucked in at the deep end can be quite scary, but learning on the job has been my pathway in learning about social media, and being very curious about things."
She also advised that curiosity is always a good quality to have. "Just be really curious about the profession that you've been given." She added: "ask questions, google things, I know when I was fresh out of university, I didn't ever have a social media job."
Her final piece of advice was to make sure that you don't put too much pressure on yourself to start off. "When I conducted my first report, you have to remember that, the person whose given you that job, has given you it for a reason." She added: "They are aware of your experience, even if you've never done a report before, remember they know that as well."
So, that brings our post to a close. We hope you have learned more about the creative marketing profession, and hopefully, you will want to learn even more after this!
Don't forget to keep your eyes peeled for our next post.. which is all about personal branding.
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