When did Marketing click for you?

Yawn Marketing is proud sponsor of the Norfolk Women’s Marketing Network’s 2024 Star Award. This particular award embodies everything that NWM stands for and the winner will be an advocate… for good marketing, Norfolk, and women’s empowerment. 

The NWM Awards encourage us to reflect on our career highlights and successes, and so the Yawn team found ourselves reminiscing about what marketing means to them and when it truly ‘clicked’ for them…

I cut my teeth in a teeny tiny eCommerce outfit based in Lowestoft. The glamour of working in Lowestoft wore thin pretty quickly, but the immediacy of digital marketing and the pace of that working environment kept me coming back for more!

If the atmosphere in your marketing team is balanced correctly, there can be something very exciting about working in eCommerce: launching campaigns, scrapping ideas, measuring results and scrabbling to meet your targets. It can be exhausting, but it’s an exciting way to learn a craft. It taught me that marketing is an engine – it’s the horse, not the cart – and that the right marketing campaign can get you out of any situation. – Sam Edwards, Managing Director

Despite having studied graphic design at higher education, I knew I didn’t really want to pursue a career in it. But, feeling I had no other options, off I went with my underwhelming portfolio under my arm and tried half-heartedly at interviews with design agencies where, naturally, I failed. Thankfully, an in-house opportunity came up for a design and marketing role. The position was predominantly a marketing one, which I didn’t really know much about at the time, but they were willing to teach me that side while I used my design skills to develop their brand and their printed collateral (all very offline back then!).

I quickly realised that the marketing side was able to deliver what I’d been looking for, being able to build a brand story using a combination of words, visuals and data, in terms of cold, hard numbers. And spreadsheets, oh, the spreadsheets! I found I could still use my creativity, which had been partly what had led me to design in the first place, but in different ways that, for me, were far more fulfilling.

It sounds so silly now, but it really hit home to me while I sat writing a report on the performance of a Royal Mail door drop campaign we’d recently executed. I remember naively trying to translate campaign costs into ROI by asking the team how many phone calls we’d had from it, so we could gain buy-in for the next campaign, along with ideas for changing the messaging or testing different geographic areas. I remember thinking, “yeah, this is where I want to be”, and, to be fair, it still is. – Jess Ford, Head of Marketing Services

I don’t know if marketing has clicked for me yet. Having spent 13 years in sales, I’ve always naturally understood the symbiotic relationship between sales and marketing, although just figured they were two sides of the same coin.
However, it wasn’t until I really dived into specific marketing domains that it actually started to make sense. Sales is a point-and-shoot numbers game, but marketing is a balanced mix of creativity and data-driven strategy, where every single like, comment, share, interaction, click, and engagement holds significance.
It was that ‘eureka’ moment when I realised that marketing isn’t just the other side of that coin focused on selling products, but rather it’s the Coca Cola Christmas advert, the GoCompare guy, or just the every day emails from brands that land in my inbox. It’s about shaping consumer perceptions, thinking outside the box, and crafting long-lasting impressions. – Rob Wood, Account Manager

Marketing truly clicked for me about 13 years ago when I witnessed firsthand the incredible impact a well-crafted proposition can have on sales. It was a pivotal moment when, after making a simple tweak to a line of ad copy that pushed a customer-centric proposition, the campaign resulted in a threefold increase in conversion rates. After comparing the data with other tested propositions and sharing the results with my client, the brand rolled out this new proposition across its brand, effectively tripling their sales compared to the previous year.

This experience highlighted to me the immense power of understanding and adapting to customer expectations. It also taught me that the most significant enhancements often stem not just from marketing strategies alone, but from the advertiser’s genuine commitment to being the best at what they do. – Rob Lewis, Paid Media Specialist

Originally, I kicked off my career in stage production at The Garage, a performing arts hub in Norwich, which aligned with what I studied in college – I’m a sucker for a musical! Witnessing successful performances and the joy they brought excited me; I wanted to reach more people and for them to experience that same feeling.

Opportunities emerged in the marketing team, and I eagerly lent a hand whenever possible. Before long, I discovered a genuine passion for the work and the tangible impact it had. When a Marketing Assistant position opened up, I jumped at the chance and was fortunate enough to fill the role. Under the guidance of my first Marketing Manager, I soaked up invaluable skills that truly solidified my understanding of marketing. She was the catalyst that made it all click for me. – Naomi Chapman, Marketing Executive