Digital Marketing Apprentice, accountancy
Jono Hutchins was hired as Business Support at Co-Accounting South London, a new venture that was coming out from under an umbrella company. This meant the business needed new branding, new messaging, new everything.
Jono’s role was half admin and half marketing. He had a business management degree, but had only done a couple of modules on marketing as part of that. Jono and his boss Damion were at the point of deciding how to resource the marketing when they heard about the Digital Marketing Academy.
The Academy was leaps of bounds ahead of any other option that was available.
What was your plan for marketing the business?
Well because it had come from a separate company, there was that legacy of the old brand lingering around whereas the new brand was very much start from, start from the beginning and build everything up.
We had some clients and some awareness, but it was very much trying to change everyone's view from the old brand to the new brands and then building up from that.
We were in that very early stage of looking at different options. We were thinking of whether to get a marketing expert to come in and give us one-off support, a plan, and then run with whatever their suggestions were and me trying those different things.
Then we heard about the Academy. It was just so much more support than what anything else would give us. The Academy was leaps of bounds ahead of any other option that was available. It actually allowed us to build this marketing department up and use the skills we were being taught.
What other factors were important?
It was also more of a structured content over a period of time. So rather than just have someone come in and give us an hour for example, and then us still going into the unknown... I think the Academy is much more structured, being taught all this different stuff.
From the company perspective and my perspective, it was being able to upskill. Coming out of university I had a range of skills, but doing this side of things was completely different. Having a support network to not only bounce ideas off of, but having a structure to follow of ’This is what we're gonna do each month, this is how we’re going to focus on building a portfolio of things to do’, that was the part that appealed to both myself and Damion - to see what's going work and how we can use that within the business.
It actually allowed us to build this marketing department up and use the skills we were being taught.
What position was the business in when you started? Did the Academy have an impact?
The business had a very static growth. We would grow, we would have clients on board, clients leave and sort of constantly fluctuating around the same point.
About six months into the Academy we suddenly had a load of companies come towards us. Our brand was becoming more aware to other people. Suddenly we grew around 10% just by going through those steps with the Academy.
We were doing Google Ads, making sure our social media was going out regularly and getting that awareness with people of our brand.
What would you say to someone who was looking to join the Academy?
Coming out of university and going into this job, I was sort of anti-training because I was like, “I don't need to train now, I'm done!” But going through apprenticeship reset me completely on that.
I'm really glad I did do it because of the skills it's given me. The responsibilities that I had [meant] I had a voice in the business anyway, but it allowed me to be more of the guiding voice to go with.
With the apprenticeship, having that network around you and so many experts around you, you can take the knowledge from them, but also you have your own ideas and get their input back. I think having that whole network of everything is really beneficial.
From the business perspective, rather than having to guess what things might work and what things might not work, it was having that structure, having that step-by-step guide of how things could work and what you need to do to set yourself up to succeed.
