My Work Experience

After graduation, months of applications and rejections flew by leaving me with one word, experience. So after returning from the adventures in India feeling more fresh and determined than ever, I jumped into a digital marketing work experience placement at nursery furniture brand Izziwotnot.

Although it was an unpaid role it didn't just land in my lap, I had to do the whole formal interview thing too (which obviously went really well). Unlike the two weeks work experience you have at high school, this involved real responsibilities for a longer period of time. I awoke on the first day really excited but really nervous. We started with an introduction meeting explaining what we aim to cover which got me even more excited and less nervous as I became more comfortable with the staff and the new environment. After being shown around the building and already forgetting a ton of names of fellow staff members, I was shown my desk and my first task, working on Google Analytics. The task was to pull off figures for view counts, traffic sources and keywords and put them into a spreadsheet report for further analysis. Although this task sounds simple, it really gave me a feel for the company's online presence and their market. I also learnt what terms like 'bounce rate' meant and received exposure to pay-per-click campaigns, how much this business spends and what campaigns or products they use it for.

Within the next few weeks I was converting guides to an online form and ensuring they were adjusted for search engine optimisation purposes. I even sat in a meeting with potential future web developers for the new websites which was a unique insight in to how businesses use their sites and different techniques to produce sales. After all the current guides were online and optimised, I set about creating my own, 'Choosing A Mattress', that was part of the 'bed month' campaign. This involved working on the Adobe Creative Suite software to modify photos and put the guide together with my written copy in a similar format to the current guides. Writing in the brand's tone was something I'd never done before but was certainly fun and easy to catch on with.

It was also around the time when there's the big baby exhibition show in Harrogate where many businesses can showcase their new products and ranges. As well as some new furniture and bedding, Izziwotnot wanted to test the waters for a couple of new colours for their popular Skyline furniture. This was done through a 'back-to-basics' technique, mood-boards, which I produced. This was a chance to get creative, arty and sticky. The mood-board was a collection of pictures and photos that represent the themes and messages of the range. Due to my knowledge of the web I instantly knew where to look, Tumblr. I came across a lot of pictures that represented the 'bubblegum' or 'popcorn' vintage pink we were aiming for and whittled it down to a few that fit but also contrasted well together. I added some of the new ranges to the sites with some inventive product descriptions.

The Beach Blue mood-board (unfinished)

The bubblegum/popcorn Pink moon-board (unfinished) 

I then found myself halfway through the three month experience. We had another meeting and looked at what we've done so far and was asked what I'd like to do in the next few weeks. I stated that I would love to get more involved with the social media side of things, which were currently being handled by another volunteer. I found what was currently being posted rather boring and generic and most of the time contained spelling and grammatical errors.

Here's what I would liked to have done with the social media accounts:

• Increase likes: There were below 700 likes on Facebook and feel there was a lot of room for improvement here for the Facebook posts to have any impact on the business. I got the feeling many of these likes were picked up a while ago from people who may have abandoned their Facebook account, or have simply got all their baby products and/or no longer need any more. This could have been done by making their customers aware of the Facebook page, handing out cards inside the packaging of products, integrating the social networks more in their sites and releasing exclusive competitions/offers on Facebook and promoting them through paid Facebook ads.
• Infographic - This could have coincided with the 'bed month' campaign, so it could have been about safety statistics or what to look out for when choosing a bed. Infographics are very shareable and thus would get Izziwotnot's name out there.
• Paint a picture of the brand: When I first seen their website and logo, I got a really classical, vintage feel and think the brand could have played with this theme.
• Human to human - The whole point of social media is for it to be social. The brand's target market is clearly mums or mums-to-be so posts that engage this audience should be influenced by things the audience can relate to and not necessarily be about sales all the time. 
• Tweets - Separate posts on Twitter instead of re-posts of the ones on Facebook. Conduct searches to find their audience and talk to them, suggest links to the guides, ask if they're having any difficulty choosing the right furniture, retweet them, give mums a reason to follow this account.
• Instagram and Pinterest - They had a lot of pretty photos that would be perfect to paint a picture of their brand on Instagram. This could have been utilised a lot more.

Sadly I never got to see these ideas through for various reasons. I also asked to have a go at running pay-per-click campaigns due to my increasing interest in paid search advertising, however, the company as a whole were rather busy post-Harrogate shows and due to being a startup, have limited budgets. I have since researched how to conduct PPC campaigns and am hoping to gain a Google Adwords certification to prove I have the grounding to possibly take this further.

In the last few weeks I was taught how to compile offers and deals. I looked over our competitors and their pricing and offers, then worked out what we could afford to discount without going below certain profit margins. For my first offer, we were influenced by a competitor's offer of giving away a free hanging rail with a furniture set. The hanging rail was rather cheap to produce but retailed for much more so it made commercial sense. We created the voucher code for the retail site and distributed it along with other offers to our affiliates.

After just a couple of months I became accustomed to the products, and began to look out for potential opportunities that might be of benefit. On my morning read of the news, I came across an article on the Daily Mail (don't judge) about Kate Middleton buying a moses basket for her future baby, so I posted the article to the Facebook page and suggested taking a look at our own moses basket which offered more and at a cheaper price.

To mark the end of the work experience, we had a final meeting where I was offered a part-time job with the hope to mould my role into a full-time position, however this never materialised due to a review of their finances. So, that was the end of my first proper experience in a real business. Even though it didn't quite have the ending we hoped for, I feel like I've learnt a lot throughout the experience that should be very helpful for my future. There were some boring times (as with most jobs) but most importantly I've experienced doing what I love for business purposes for the first time.