Reality of a Small Business Digital Marketing Apprentice

 

Welcome to my first article where I will be discussing my experience and thoughts as a Digital Marketing Apprentice. I will also be talking about our Digital Marketing Consultancy, what we do, our processes and the results of our operations. This blog will also be a good insight for people who may be thinking of applying to become an apprentice under the Apprenticeship Scheme and for those that are looking for services from us but need a little motivation and incentive to make the right decision. First I will tell you about what sparked my interest to become a Digital Marketing Apprentice, which I learn to enjoy more and more every day.

Why I chose to pursue a career in Digital Marketing

My interest in Digital Marketing started bubbling from the time I started my clothing brand, Dinero Garments, late last year (October 2016) however, I didn’t quite know it yet. I set up everything that I thought would be useful for my brand. My brand assets would involve a website, social media pages and an e-mail. The social media platforms I used were Twitter and Instagram (at the time), but now I have set up a Facebook too. Things were going well, the brand was growing, and I loved the support I was getting; however, I went on holiday before the end of the year to attend a family wedding abroad. As a result. I was uploading less and less content on my social media pages and not interacting with new followers.

I eventually came back to England with a fresh mindset to improve upon the brand but within the time I had gone abroad, my followers on both accounts at the time (Twitter and Instagram) had decreased. This then motivated me to book a four-week course with Shaw Academy for Digital Marketing which I enjoyed and learnt a lot from. While attending this online Digital Marketing course, I was actively looking for a Digital Marketing Apprenticeship. Upon Completion of the Digital Marketing course, I had been contacted by Eny Osung for an interview at Small Business e-Marketing within the same week I had completed the course. Thankfully, I secured the position and was taken on board.

My duties at Small Business e-Marketing and Our Process

The first thing I noticed about working at small Business e-Marketing is that Eny has a documented process for each and every task. He believes if you follow the process you will always get results. I will give you an example, throughout my week my tasks involve managing clients’ social media accounts. One of them is Twitter. Twitter is an excellent way to target your audience through its search and hashtag system, which is magnificent if you want to pinpoint people by location or by interests. My tasks as a digital marketing apprentice on Twitter would be managing clients Twitter accounts, and this involves increasing followers, direct messaging fans, interacting with fans, welcoming new followers and post content. For each of these tasks, there is a process I have to abide by for me to see results.

When I first log into a client’s page Twitter page, I have to look at their new notifications and see what new followers they have and open up a new tab for each new follower. Once I have done that, I will then copy and paste each new fans handle into a new tweet and direct message them with a thank message. My next task is then to direct message these new followers; the message would usually involve a thank you for following, introduce the services that our client offers and recommend a meeting or phone call. I then unfollow accounts that haven’t followed our client’s account back, which is easy and takes no time at all. My next task which I will discuss takes a bit of time. My fourth job would then involves following 100 target audience accounts, for example, we work with a Water dispenser company called Love Water. Their target audience is broad as everyone needs water such as offices, gyms, schools, homes, etc. We then have another client called Advanced Print who specialise in printing, their target audience would be self-employed people and businesses who may need business cards, event organisers who need leaflets, people who might need their workwear embroidered or printed, and people who want vehicle signage.

All of these target groups can be found easily with twitter’s hashtag system. My fifth task would then be posting content for our clients: a morning post and an afternoon post. One post would be a content that relates to the business itself such as a promoting a sale or product, and the other post would be a relevant content (news, tips, blog, article or quote) relating to the firm. I will say this, the process works, our client’s followers grow, and they can get to target their ideal target audience. Just have faith in the process.

I have been working at Small Business e-Marketing for three weeks now, and I can say I have learnt a lot from Eny within the short time we have known each other and I must say it is a pleasure working for him. I can honestly say I have gained a lot of knowledge from him but there’s one thing that he once told me that has always stuck in my head, and that is “Marketing takes time”. I experienced this myself while I was managing his LinkedIn account. My task was to connect with at least 25 people a day and message the new connections to introduce them to our company and promote his Marketing Seminar which was a success as we had a good turnout of guests for Eny’s brilliant insight into Digital Marketing for Business.

Before the event, Eny and I had to do a lot of organising, such as ordering food, creating an attendance list for people coming to the event, printing handouts, gathering contact details, sending emails off to people attending to remind them of the event. I had the task of teasing them with a quick article about digital marketing which I had to search online to find.

Now back to linkedIn, as I said before I had to send at least 25 connections a day to Croydon business owners. I eventually reached my 200th invitation on LinkedIn, and I finally got a reply from a lady saying she would attend the Digital Marketing seminar. I was thrilled because it showed Marketing does take time, and it was fun to know that I could be of help by getting another person to attend the event. These examples are proof of the benefits of our company’s love of having processes. I will honestly say trust the process as it works out in the long run. I have a quick quote that will enlighten you from Alex Noble.

We here at Small Business e-Marketing do everything by a process. By following the process, not only do you get the results one wants, you get the results you need. I have seen evidence of this first-hand multiple times so I can vouch that processes do work. Here at Small Business e-Marketing, we offer a low-cost service with a high-value output, so if you ever feel that you are having trouble on social media or having trouble getting sales online, why do it yourself when you can get expert help from a well trusted Digital Marketing company such as us.

Mr Osung has since then quadrupled the connections he needs on linked in; he now has me connecting to 100 accounts a day. At first, I thought the idea was a bit extreme and tedious, but I can’t argue with the results. We have improved from 2-4 connections a day and are now getting 20 plus contacts a day. While I do this, I have to keep a record of every person I send a message to and record it. I record the data collected into a spreadsheet. In the document, I write down the name of the person I connect to, whether they accept the invite, have I sent them a direct message to introduce our company and ask for a meeting, have they replied, have I followed up and whether they have confirmed a meeting or not. This procedure just makes life easier for us as we can track who has responded and organised meetings with potential clients or business partners.

Even though we are a digital marketing company, we also dabble in traditional marketing. Me and Mr Osung go out during the day and hand out leaflets. We travel around Croydon and surrounding areas to deliver local companies leaflets.We go into stores, ask them about their business, tell them about our business and give them our brochure explain about our business and explain how we can be of service to their business and leave them with contact details if they wish to communicate with us.

At the end of my day, I have to create a report of my time spent at work. Where I explain what tasks I did for the day, the results and what I have learnt. We spend a good 30 minutes doing this.

Importance of Networking

Eny loves networking. He goes to at least four business networking events a week. For those who don’t know what networking is I have a quick quote for you from Christine Comaford-Lynch.

Now, that quote says a lot about networking in just one sentence. Networking is a great way to meet new people, build relationships, build clientele, and get referrals. In the world of business, Eny has shown that networking is a key thing if you are a business owner and are willing to expand your business and ultimately improve your business as well. The great thing about networking as well is that it’s full of surprises, you may not know who one may meet at an event, you may meet someone you want to do business with, someone that can help your business, someone who may even need your help with their business. I had my first experience of networking in my second week as a Digital Marketing Apprentice, I talked to a lot of business owners, got to know their business, what they have in store for the future, talked about what I do, swapped business cards or contact details and build new relationships.

My first time was a bit daunting because it was a new environment and I felt out of place as an apprentice. However, the people at OMNI South Croydon network were welcoming individuals who settled my nerves. After a while, I started to enjoy the networking event and am very excited about going to future meetings. There are a lot of business owners out there that all share the same dream as you, and that is to run a successful business. I will leave you with another quote from Chris Grosser.

Networking is a fantastic opportunity, and there are a lot of great events out there that are looking for people like you to attend, connect and grow. I would also like to add that you can’t rely on just the networking event to create these opportunities alone, it’s what you do after the event that creates these opportunities. Book 1 to 1 meetings with people you have met at the event so that you can one can talk to each other in more detail, learn about each other and possibly see how you both could help each other.

All in all my experience as a Digital Marketing Apprentice has been life changing and beneficial in every way and not to mention it has also helped me a lot with my brand too. I hope this blog helps you understand a little bit about us as a company so that you are more familiar with what we do and what services we offer. I also hope it makes you an avid believer of processes, and for anyone looking to enrol into a digital marketing apprenticeship, this is also an insight of what I do on a day to day basis as a digital marketing apprentice. Thank you for taking time out of your day to read my article, you never know there may be more on the way,

By Jeville Peart (Digital Marketing Apprentice for Small Business e-Marketing)

***********************************************************************************************************************************************

smallbiz-emarketing provides expert market research, marketing on all digital platforms and offline advertising consultancy specifically for small businesses and start-ups for whom money is tight. Check out our Services page to see how our digital marketing services can help your business to get more customers and sell more, faster. Why not sign up for our FREE monthly newsletter using the simple form in the Footer? You can also follow us on social networks. Finally, we’d love for you to share this post with your network using the share buttons below.

***********************************************************************************************************************************************

We’d love to have your feedback and suggestions about this post. What is your experience of being an Apprentice? Has an Apprentice made a difference to your business? Please leave your comments in the Comments Section below.

Other posts you may like

4Ms Business Foundation Series: Part 4: Marketing

Making Sure the Price is Right

6 Creative Strategies for business to stay Memorable

Our Digital Marketing Services:

Website Design | Search Engine Optimisation| Content Development & Marketing| Email Marketing| Pay-Per- Click| Social Media Marketing| App Development & Marketing| Business podcasts | Video marketing

Contact Us