Over the coming months we will be introducing you to the key people behind the scenes at 1973 – the people who are always pushing the boundaries to make incredible things happen! Our team is highly talented, very creative and have a real passion for what they do; and we want to give you an insight into who they are and their roles within the company.
To kick start we would like to introduce you to Laura, our Creative Director. Laura has been a company director since 2011 and brings with her a wealth of design experience gained through agencies and freelancing – she truly understands the entire design process. Even though she heads up the creative and marketing teams, she loves to get stuck in and gets a real buzz from pushing things just that little bit further. Here’s my interview with her:
Q: What is a typical day like in the office?
My day starts with a team meeting, we all get together to have a general review on how things are going and to run through the projects planned for that day. We look at where we are and what needs to be done, to ensure we are running against plan and on time – delivering over and above client expectations is one of our key values and we pride ourselves in the thoroughness of our approach and our attention to detail, this is why the meetings are so important.
From here it’s email catch up time, before moving onto the specifics with the design team, brainstorming ideas and reviewing designs against client briefings and objectives. And then it’s back to 1973 marketing, I always allocate time each day to do a little blogging, tweeting (one of my favourite hashtags is #emailgeeks) and industry catch up – it’s crucial to understand developments if we are going to stay ahead of the game.
After a breather, a short lunchtime walk, I’m refreshed ready to start testing, proofing, reviewing and reporting. We go through a rigorous checking process for every campaign to ensure every ‘i’ is dotted, ‘t’ is crossed and every link and animation is working as it should. We also provide detailed reporting for every campaign so our clients see how successful it has been.
The final part of my day is generally focussed on conference calls with our US customers based on the west coast who have just started their day. We like to work closely with them to ensure the partnership achieves the best results. Outcomes from these meetings are then distilled ready to feedback into the following day’s team meeting.
Q: What project are you most proud of?
We were invited by a client to host a series of webinars for their B2B clients who are part of their Partner Program. They wanted to help them boost the sales of their B2C customers and realised that to do this they needed to provide additional training. This transpired into us designing and delivering 3 webinars to enhance their understanding of email marketing, our primary specialism.
The project involved creating content including animations for various email communications, registration landing pages and powerpoint presentations. These proved to be a real success, attracting a high level of interaction and attendance.
During the webinars we demonstrated the fundamentals of email marketing and how they could push the boundaries – something we love to do! The feedback we received was fantastic, see below:
“Thank you for this highly informative and down to earth webinar! I’m a few tricks of the trade wiser.” – Timothy Bejjderwelle
“Keep the webinars coming… I want to thank you for the initiative and point out that giving your partners capability to solve issues makes us more receptive to sell Seagate over other brands.” – vitor.sampaio@web-n-fix.com
This blog sums up the 3 webinars, take a look… ‘Our webinar series: Pushing the Boundaries of Emails!’
Q: What’s the best bit about your job?
What I particularly like about my role is the freedom it offers to develop solutions in-house which really push the boundaries of both design and the technical digital aspect of marketing. This involves trialling and testing cutting edge techniques before rolling them out to our client base. It is only when we are completely happy with the outcomes that we offer them to our clients and incorporate them into their campaigns.
Owning projects of this type, from the initial idea or briefing stage right through to the end result is so exhilarating and rewarding. And what’s even better is seeing them achieve amazing results for our clients.
Q: What’s next for your role?
Well that’s an interesting one! I am about to become a Mum for the first time, so will need to tear myself away for a while – obviously I am really excited about this but a little nervous too. At the moment 1973 is going through an exciting phase of growth, so things are likely to have changed by the time I come back. I am very much looking forward to the new challenges this brings and driving forward a motivated, happy and inspired team.
Team lunch sending Laura off on maternity leave
