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Overview

In this episode, Sam Sayer is joined by Sophie Davies (Founder of ‘Your Marketing Department‘), to discuss the importance of strategy in marketing. They highlight how important it is to own your specialties and use external resources to provide the best service that meets your marketing objectives.

YouTube video

Highlights:

0:20- The role of strategy in marketing

2:29- The importance of external agencies collaborating

7:50- How external agencies can work with internal marketers

15:52- Aligning with trends

24:08- What is an ideal client?

28:16- The importance of understanding your specialisms

32:31- Your Marketing Department’s process

38.29- Final thoughts

38.46- Is Sophie a Marmite lover?!

 

Sam Sayer 0:02

How are you doing Sophie?

Sophie Davies 0:04

I’m all right. Thank you. Lovely to see you.

Sam Sayer 0:07

And you and you! Just before we started recording, we talked about some nice rest and relaxation after. Yeah, we could have I really liked what you said, Sophie, about this is your new year. Yep, because people are back, people are cracking with things, and it’s the perfect time to think, well, what’s my next campaign? What’s my next strategy? And I think, really, I mean, before we get stuck into it, tell us a bit about yourself, Sophie, and what you do.

Sophie Davies 0:37

Yeah, so I’m Sophie. I run your marketing department. So, literally, your marketing department. We basically are a resource for people to use. So very much strategy LED. So I have a big belief that strategy drives everything. Marketing is great, but if you just do the tactics, then doesn’t always work, and I’ve seen so much of it, particularly since I’ve gone on my own. So my passion is making sure that we have a strategy in place, so one that is looking at ultimately, where you differentiate in the market. USP’s are really difficult. We all do the same thing, but we all have something different that we do. So it’s about really getting to the to grips with that, and understanding what your customers think, doing customer interviews, having the bravery to do that, and then understanding what’s happening the market, and then understanding your company, and kind of bringing everything together so that we can have a really strong message when we do marketing. So when we work with guys like you, we know that it’s a really strong brief and that it can work straight off. And then I have a team who deliver and help do the project management. So we are like the internal marketing team working with agencies, but creative, but kind of helping to manage the marketing through so acting as a sort of conduit between the client and agencies. So that’s what we do, really.

Sam Sayer 2:17

Yeah, and I think this is, I mean, this is why we’ve got to get there in the first place, is I really feel the days of the big sporting agencies are kind of gone. A lot of them have scaled back massively, certainly, And we very, sort of, clearly a few years ago now, said, ‘We do brand, we do web, we do bits around it, graphic design, content and things. But that’s our core. And we don’t tend to do everything’, you know we can help with a lot of things. We know lots of people like yourself, you know, we could help throw things together. But actually, your strategy is absolutely the core of this. And I think, you know, we have a lot of conversation with clients. We will do the website and talk about, you know, next plans. Fine, now we’re going to be doing this. Okay, great. And then a few months later, I’ve not really had, you know, got a website, but, you know, I’ve got loads of leads through it. It’s like, well, you know, it’s not a painting you just put on the wall and leave, you know, you want to share it with people. And, you know, draw people to it. And what’s your plan? What’s the big idea? You know, we work with a lot of companies who have internal marketing people who are fantastic, but I think certainly it’s good to have an external recommendation and a big picture that’s not too rooted in the business, who understands the industrial sector. And we’ve certainly found we do have some niches and audience pillars, but we like the variety and look at prospects different things, and think this worked really well in the property space. How would it work in insurance, or whatever it is, you know.

Sophie Davies 3:50

Yeah it’s really interesting that, because I get quite a lot of clients going well, you haven’t got sector experience. And actually, kind of one of, certainly my specialisms is that I’ve worked across all sectors, and it’s amazing how everything links up. So when you’re doing a strategy, you kind of go, so the strategies I do kind of it’s not a brand strategy, because that would be kind of bigging it up too much, but fundamentally, it creates a unique selling proposition. And it could, you know, creates a hook for everyone. And I kind of think, industry sector is really great if you’ve got experience. But what I’ve found working with some people is that you can get a bit blinkered.

Sam Sayer 4:34

Absolutely.

Sophie Davies 4:35

So it is good to have a bit variety. And I think that’s a real thing to when you choose agencies. You know, it’s very easy to go, oh, well, I’ll go with the kitchen one. I worked with a client recently, worked with a kitchen specialist, and they just went, they pigeonholed them. They went, Oh, you’re this. And it’s kind of like, and then when they bought me in, I kind of went, I don’t think you are Wren. I think you’re somewhere else, and we tease that out. It’s really important to tease it out. But the thing is, as you said, a lot of the time that you know, if a website doesn’t work, it’s because messaging is not right. So I get a lot of people coming up to me and going, Oh, the messaging is not working. Oh, what? How do I change my marketing? I need to change my website. I need to change my social media, but actually, have you got the messaging right? And are you briefing people like yourselves correctly so that you guys can also do the best job? Because alot of people, if you don’t know who your customer is, and you don’t know what your key message is, that’s going to make you stand out in the market. It makes everyone else’s job a lot more difficult, even internal people a lot more difficult. And the sales staff, you know, if you have this actually, what it does is helps everyone in the company.

Sam Sayer 5:47

Yeah, absolutely.

Sophie Davies 5:50

And, you as a marketeer get the best work out of everyone.

Sam Sayer 5:53

Sure. Yeah. I understand, for some people, they want to have one point of contact for all of it, which does make sense a lot of ways. I think this is particularly where, you know you have strengths and that you can pull, pull people together, but manage the overall project. But I think, yeah, we always find putting the right people into the right task. You know, we work with copywriters and and we know someone might be better. We’ll often say, look, here’s two people. Have a chat with both and see who you gel with, sort of thing. But you tend to know, actually this is probably the right person for that part. Yeah, I think that makes it more nimble that way.

Sophie Davies 6:31

That’s kind of what we pride ourselves on, is actually getting the right partners. So I don’t want to be a marketing agency, the creative, creative and copywriting and development, design is a specialised skill. And I know that we’ve all got Canva and we’ve got that, but fundamentally, those who are going to give you something that’s really good, you need to be with a specialist. So I think definitely it’s worth it. That’s why we kind of, we try to manage everything alongside the marketing people you know within the business, but we tend to find, what I found is that don’t have a strategy. So it’s very difficult when you’re, particularly when you’re a sole marketer, or there’s two of you in in the marketing team, tend to get driven by, like, tend to be very, very busy doing all sorts of things. And actually, sometimes just need a little bit of a steer of, how do I get the board to understand things? So, you know, it is good, because you guys can really help on the website side of going, actually, that’s not going to work. There’s no point. You know, you need a brochure site. You know, I know that everyone wants 50 pages, but ultimately it’s more effective to have a brochure site or vice versa, yeah. But, you know, actually it’s quite good to have someone like us coming in and going, this is how you sell it into the board, or us coming to the board and going, actually, this is the messaging. This is what we need. Because part of the strategy that I do is kind of also looking at what the comms needs to be. Website is, you know, we know the website is central to everything, and then sort of because that’s where everyone ends up, regardless of what type of media you’re doing. But you know what was also then appropriate, because if most things are coming through referrals. There’s no point spending loads of money on PPC, you know, on Google ads, absolutely, because that’s just a waste of money. So they’re part of what we do is kind of avoid, like, that knee jerk, oh, we’ve got to do this, because that’s what everyone’s doing. It’s like, actually, because we know the customer, because we’ve done customer interviews, we can go actually, you know what? The website is really important. They’re going to buy off the website, so let’s do that. Or they might buy off Amazon, for example. Or, you know, I don’t know they there it’s just referrals, where you get your business so how are we going to build the referral side of it, the partnership side. And again, linking with people like you guys to go, right, this is appropriate. One of my clients was a glass company, you know, top notch Glass Company. And they came to us and then they said, Oh, well, we’re actually producing in Lithuania, and it’s kind of like that, if you’re like, bespoke glass, and building them in Lithuania it doesn’t work. So what we ended up doing was kind of suggesting a split in the company, and so we could really focus on, you know, the bespoke and have that uniqueness, and then be able to do supply only, for example. So that’s kind of, like really important, because if they come to you, which, you know, and they’ve just gone on, we need a Windows website, then you would have created this thing that actually wasn’t appropriate and wasn’t going to get the results that they want.

Sam Sayer 9:59

I was going to come too that point about the fact that I love that you do the client interviews, and we always dig deep in terms of, you know, your website is not necessarily what you want it to be. What does your clients want from it? You know? And you know, we, but then we wouldn’t necessarily go as deep as you just described because actually, which they’ve come with us with the clear need for that great, is the messaging right for it? Yeah, it’s making it work for you, but generally, it’s based on what they tell us. We’re not going to go and interview their clients.

Sophie Davies 10:30

No and I don’t think that’s a necessary if that’s not your job. Because fundamentally, as you know, if you’re mature in your marketing, I do think that you do need to have a number of, you know, years under your belt. So this isn’t startup stuff. This is stuff where you’re really strong and where you want to be, you know, it isn’t, it actually isn’t your job to do that type of stuff. It is always been the internal marketer that should be doing that. I think there’s not always been, because it’s just like, Oh, we’ll get a web company to do that. And I think, it’s just kind of having that understanding of the value. So you guys do what you can. I just feel quite strongly that you should be doing, you know, if you want to scale your business, we can do all of that, but if you want to scale your business, you need to understand. And what I find very interesting with customer interviews, which is why I kind of add that to my strategy, is that you actually get what the business is, actually what it is to the customer, not what we all think. We all have perceptions what our business is, so you know. And I think for you guys, which is why I kind of really like this interim thing, because it means that I know that I can work with great creatives to produce a website that’s absolutely right and give you the information you actually need. So yeah, it’s an interesting one, but I think that’s, you know, you will always dig deep. And, you know, we’ve been through your process, and you do dig deep. It’s just those extra nuances that both the messaging and we have to give you the messaging, because that’s our job.

Sam Sayer 12:14

Yeah, and that’s definitely one for another day. You know, looking through that bit, that’s the biggest fit to it and the hardest bit to get right. I think, yeah, certainly we had a couple of years ago, we did a proper zoom out of our business. I think, Okay, well, we sort of 10 years in, but okay, well, loads have change. Have we changed how we’re communicating what we’re doing differently? And it is really interesting, because you can get lost in the weeds of your own business, yeah we can do this bit! Your customers say, do this, right? Okay, so, yeah, I think this is why an external resource can often be really, really powerful, because, you know, you’re not, you’re not wedded to an older version of the company or anything like that. It’s, you know, it’s a much more objective view of it, right?

Sophie Davies 13:01

And, you know, I mean, I take into consideration everything, because there’s still a huge history, but actually, through all the research that they do, you can kind of find a uniqueness within and find a kind of a specific target audience. And it doesn’t mean to say that you can’t change that, and it’s, I think it’s one of the most difficult things, and I think particularly for people coming to you guys, within marketing, you focus on one thing, and it’s very difficult to do that as a business owner. It’s like, but I do this as well. I do this as well. I do this as well, which means that for you guys it’s really difficult, because it’s like, you can’t quite nail it. So, you know, again, having an external person who goes, You know what? We’ve just got to focus on this, and we’ll focus on this for six months, see how it does, and everything else will come. It’s taking a leap of faith, but it’s also having someone helping you, supporting you to take and to make sure that everyone’s bought into it, and making sure that’s through. And it makes it a superb website for you guys and the brand, actually, because the brand is also an interesting one. Changing branding is very interesting, but if there’s a reason to do it, you know, it means that you’ve got much stronger brand when you come out of it.

Sam Sayer 14:30

Absolutely It’s, it’s going through the motions, right? It’s, you know, right? Need some help. We need to get on with this.

Sophie Davies 14:38

And it can feel like, what am I getting? And I and, you know, I have a lot of clients go, well, you’re just telling me what I’ve told you already. And it’s kind of like I might be but I’m doing it in a very succinct way. And then, like, because there’s a lot of clients who look at it and go, ugh and then they come back and they go, No, yeah, you’ve just summarised everything I’ve been trying to Summarise for the last five years so, and I think that’s a specialism, you know, being able to look at that and go, right, okay, this is actually what it’s all about. And also, I think businesses evolve, and you have to come back, you know, so many clients that I work with you, kind of you go, Well, that’s what I started with. And it’s like, yeah, that is what you started with.

Sam Sayer 15:27

That’s your core.

Sophie Davies 15:28

Fundamentally, what’s the problem you’re solving. But as your business grows and as we evolve, it’s like, oh, it’s not quite right. So we, you know, a lot of the time I go back to the beginning, and it’s like, oh, it’s actually, yeah, it’s kind of like, yeah, you’ve evolved, but we need to just make sure that that’s what our focus is. And go back which is really interesting.

Sam Sayer 15:52

Yeah, we see a lot of people get dragged on the currents of trends. Like, okay, that’s been a flash in the pan, and that looked good five years ago, two years ago. Things have moved on, and it’s, yeah, but that’s kind of skin deep, really, you know, the actual core, that the messaging, the big idea, that’s the magic, right?

Sophie Davies 16:12

That is magic, yeah. And, you know, you can get caught up with things. And I think we can all do that. You know, I remember doing QR codes 14 years ago. It was far too advanced for the market phones weren’t enough advanced. Now you see QR codes everywhere. If you’d asked me yeah at the time, I just went, well, this isn’t really working. And, you know, you thought they’d gone away. And actually, they haven’t. Just everything’s evolved, and now we can use QR codes on a regular basis. Customers can use it.

Sam Sayer 16:49

Absolutely, yeah. I always kind of see it as the it’s like the sat nav of website and of URLs, isn’t it, right?

Sophie Davies 16:57

Yeah.

Sam Sayer 16:58

You don’t what the website is you just scan the code. I remember quite clearly poo pooing it a few years ago. I think it’s old hat and is a bit of a fad. How wrong was I? And I’m happy to admit that, you know, it’s great.

Sophie Davies 17:13

Podcasts is my admission on that. Why is this all about podcasts?

Sam Sayer 17:21

And here we are!

Sophie Davies 17:21

And here we are podcasters, are the thing, yeah, at the time, you know. And that was 12 years ago, but, you know, it was just like, because there’s a lot of evidence to say, Nah, but, you know, and that’s the other thing, is that’s interesting, actually, with research and stuff, is finding the evidence that is correct, because we all go and find the evidence that isn’t correct. So that’s, I think, also quite a good reason for, you know, finding someone externally, because you won’t get dragged in. You know, they always talk about the World War, where they studied where the bullet holes were in planes, and then reinforce those. But the reality was, ones that came back didn’t have a problem, is the ones that got blown up, and they were the ones who had been shot in the middle of the plane. And so that’s the enforcement. But the research, you know, because of just the way it was, which is, and when you’re inside the business, you’re looking for specific things. So again, when you’re outside the business, I think you can be a little bit more, you know, sometimes it can be a bit brutal where you go. That’s just not right, you know, that’s what you want. That’s not what your customer wants. So, yeah, that’s interesting.

Sam Sayer 18:36

This is it, yeah, and it’s, you know, it’s having the humility, really, I think, to say, Yeah, let’s, you know, let’s ripple up and, you know, piece it back together. Sometimes you need to, right?

Sophie Davies 18:48

Actually, I mean, I’ve done it a few times. It’s like, what do you really, what do people really want from marketing? I’m part of a business group, and everyone goes, God, you’ve just asked this, like, open question. I’m going, Yeah, but I want to know, because there’s no point me logging something that nobody wants, or someone that something that people go, Oh, that’s just a waste of time. So, you know, I would rather know if people you know what’s pissing you off about marketing, because that’s the question I ask, which is always really interesting. What’s pissing you off so that when you know we were talking, I’m working with recruiting spouses at the moment, which is a kind of charity that I’m kind of very much aligned to. And I’ve lost my train of thought. Oh, yes, that’s it. And it’s like an important part was when we were talking to the clients, you know? What don’t you like about recruitment agencies? And actually, what that does is allow us to go, right, actually, we’re not that brilliant. Number one, yeah. And number two, we’re never going to say this. We’re never going to we can counter it and go, Oh, we’re not commission based. We’re not this, we’re not that, because that’s what people hate hearing about. So it’s quite interesting.

Sam Sayer 20:00

I worked the branding agency, long time ago. And we also, right, are we a me too brand, or are we a movement shaker and doing the opposite? And, you know, yeah, it depends, right? Yeah, it depends on the company it depends on the market and what you’re doing.

Sophie Davies 20:13

Absolutely. And depends on the owners. And, you know, it depends on where the business is going as well, because, you know, it does evolve, and you know, so it may be, actually, that’s the appropriate way to go for the business. So that’s why we always look at the business, quite a lot of goals, business goals as well. Because we’ve got to take that into consideration and have, yeah, for sure results around that so again, and we mentor as well as as work with, you know, on behalf of your like other marketing department, so with your marketing department, but I also mentor some of the marketing people, just to help them to understand the wider and how to implement the strategy. So that can be a bit of a challenge.

Sam Sayer 21:07

Okay, yeah. But also interesting to say, you know, it you can look at people who already have someone in marketing.

Sophie Davies 21:14

I always do. So quite a lot of the people we work with have people in marketing, they just need a bit of help, or they need the strategy. So one of the clients I’m working with at the moment, they needed the strategy. I did the strategy for them. Three years ago. The business was very new. The Arm of the business I was doing strategy, but was very new with three years on, they’ve got the sales sorted. They’ve got a strong business, basically. So I could do redo it. And then, so I did that strategy. But then since then, I’ve been working with the marketing manager to help her to go, oh, what campaign should we do? What do I need to do here. How do I, how do I take this strategy and create the messaging? How do I put that into social media? So I’ve got other people in the team who kind of can look at social media, or I look at email marketing as well. So it’s kind of because it’s all very well, you’ve got the strategy that you’ve got to then implement it.

Sam Sayer 22:22

That’s it, having this big idea document.

Sophie Davies 22:26

Which is, again, why it’s so important to use, you know, people like yourselves, because you can translate that. And, you know, I think we all forget, like, I don’t pretend I’m a solicitor, for example, because I wouldn’t know how to start. I have a special specialism, and again, similarly for you guys, and why I use specialists, because that’s why we don’t have anyone in house, because I don’t, I want to use specialists that can bring out the best from what we do. And that’s really important. And working, and teaching the new generation that’s coming through.

Sam Sayer 23:05

Yeah, absolutely. It’s not just our agency, photographer, that’s it, you know. It’s like, well, yeah, we work with a few, you know. Here’s the portfolio. What do you think? We think this, should, you know, this guy work best, or should be best? Or this, it gives you flexibility.

Sophie Davies 23:18

It does give you flexibility. And I, you know, and I think it’s also about personalities, you know, if I’ve got a marketing manager who’s got a certain personality, then I also, not only for the brand that also needs help those you know, because everything’s about relationships in all of these things, you know, and trust. So you know, I recommend you guys, for CN glass, for example, who are glass clients, because you guys are really down to earth, and they’re very down to earth. Do you know what I mean? So it’s also about nature, because if we’ve got airy fairy that won’t work with certain clients, certain clients just want, you know, beautiful websites, and we can do that, and that’s appropriate. But like, yeah, you know, we find the right fit, that works for everyone.

Sam Sayer 24:08

Definitely. We’ve talked about this before is, you know, we’ve, we’ve done our own ideal client profile, it could work in any industry. Do we get on them? Do we have a connection on the first call? That’s so important.

Sophie Davies 24:22

Yeah, so important. Because otherwise it just doesn’t, you know, and do you believe in what they’re doing as well? For some of the clients I’ve, you know, where we’ve done the strategy, and it’s sort of not gone any further. Is, is the not real belief in doing strategy? Yeah, I think you have to be in a certain area space in your business. Of, actually, I want to scale this, and I want to move on. So I wouldn’t necessarily recommend a strategy for everyone. In actual fact, I think you have to be in a certain place in the business of, you know, a strategy is not going to get you immediate leads. It’s a long term thing. But what we’ll do is is provide the foundations. Yeah, so it’s the long game. It’s a long game. Yeah, it’s like a website. I mean, you want a website. So again, this is why it’s really good to do things like that before you do what I call long term projects. So websites should be a long term project. I know from experience that if you just add bolt things on, everything becomes a mess, and it becomes a, you know, nobody can the customer journey is terrible and so, you know, but at times that’s, that’s fine. It’s just, if you’re getting to, for example, like, a 30 page website, because you need to blog, how many products, then actually, that’s the time to get the strategy to make sure everything’s right. You understand your customers, but if you just kind of need a brochure website.

Sam Sayer 25:51

It’s funny you say that right. We did a proposal, actually for client, 40 page site, great. We looked at their site and they had 250 pages. They didn’t know they didn’t know they had that many pages. It’s just really convoluted. It’s like, okay, it’s not as simply think. ‘Well yes it is’. But yeah again, it’s that zoom out. You know, we’ve looked objectively and think, Okay, do you wear this? All this stuff? Probably a lot of it can go but yeah, we need to check. We look at these things, is that SEO value built on those pages, that if we lose that page, we’re gonna start losing traffic, maybe it can be redirected or something. But are you, you know, let’s look at the big picture here.

Sophie Davies 26:31

And I think that’s, that’s again, you know, you guys can do that. But also, if, I think particularly for those who’ve got marketing departments, Junior marketing, because, you know, the tendency is, your first marketing person is a junior person that you’re expecting to do everything, and they’re going to struggle because they haven’t got the experience. I mean, I, I’ve been in the industry nearly 30 years.Therefore, I can look at something and go, no, you don’t want to do that. And I think it is quite good to have that external person as just a like, actually, you know, you have got 250 pages. We need to go down to 40 and just helping, you know, make decisions. Because, yeah, you know, some pages exactly as you say, there’s SEO, but then at the same time, there might be some pages that doing really well with SEO, but aren’t going to, aren’t going to hit the business target, yes, so we need to swap it.

Sam Sayer 27:30

You need to have that conversation decide what we’re doing.

Sophie Davies 27:32

Yeah. That’s also going to cause pain, because suddenly your results aren’t going to be quite so it’s kind of having that person next door to you going, it’s okay, yeah, because there’s so many complexities of little nuances that you only get with experience. When you become a bit more old and wrinkly.

Sam Sayer 27:57

It’s absolutely the case. I think, you know, this is why we, kind of, we trim down our services, actually, this is our core. Yeah, we can do other things, but it’s not really what we’re, you know, I’ve got, I think, right, how does this work again, and, you know, I could pull it off. But actually, no, we are focused on these things now, and it’s been more powerful for us 100%.

Sophie Davies 28:16

Yeah, and that’s why I don’t do any of the creative because, I would rather find the right specialists, and that might be appropriate to have the sector specialists, you know, for copywriting, for example, because they can do it a lot faster, and so it’s more cost effective. But yeah, I’m exactly the same. And then the advantage, I think the advantage of having us is that we can manage everyone, to bring everyone together. So our tendency is to manage a lot of different people, you know, fundamentally project managers and strategists to deliver so, yeah, it’s definitely worth having those different thinking about it. It’s a different approach, yeah, but it’s also cost effective, because, I mean, I’m an agency, big agency, big London agency background, and, you know, it’s quite machine you’re trying to push through. Things can be quite slow, you know, and don’t always have, you know, the right people, the senior people don’t. They come in and put your first meeting, and then that’s it. You don’t see them again, yeah? So actually, by using little agencies who work collaboratively together again, you’ve got a real strength in that and cost. It might feel cost effective to have everything in one London agency, but we don’t have an office, you know, or we are not managing like 100 people, so needing all those resources for 100 people and a big office in London.

Sam Sayer 29:53

It was nice back in the day. I’m gonna say back in the day, because I think landscapes have changed a lot. It has really, really, yeah. It has for the better.

Sophie Davies 30:02

Yeah, I think so. I miss it. Yeah, I think the social life’s gone a bit.

Sam Sayer 30:07

Yeah that is the one thing. You know, I used to freelance a lot around, alot of agencies in the Midlands, and I love the camaraderie. And, you know, it’s like, you can kind of see what works at different ones.

Sophie Davies 30:16

And that’s the thing. And it was fun, like, I mean, but for me, it’s a young person’s game, but at the same time, I think it’s so important to be in the office when, sorry, this is my little so it’s really important when you’re in the office, because you can see all those different things. If you work in an agency, you can see all the different objects. You go, oh, we could do that for my client. I remember going around and go, you know, I worked on NatWest, and I’d go around and go ‘ooh look that’s what UNICEF are doing. We could actually do that. Can we do that for like, services’ and similarly, you move from financial services to pharmacy. It’s still the same regulation. So it’s kind of like, okay, well, you’re allowed to do that. Can we do that?

Sam Sayer 31:05

Yeah. I think against what we said at the start of the call is the sort of cross pollination, right? Is, yeah, that worked really well at industry. It could be a disruptive for that one. That’s good. So let’s give it a go.

Sophie Davies 31:14

I think actually, like one of the clients I’ve been working with recently, it’s completely they’re going, why we want to go down social value. And I’m kind of, I’m going, I work with a social value agency, which is completely different. And actually social value isn’t as exciting as everyone thinks. It’s a bit like the QR codes it’s really, really in at the moment. But actually, we’ve got a few years before it becomes something that people feel very strongly about. We’ve had a massive shift because of covid massive so, like, social value and helping people and community is much more, much stronger, but we’re not at the point where all business is thinking about social value. So it’s kind of like, that’s the other thing is, like something will play in that you have no idea about, you know, beauty industry and architecture, like, would you wouldn’t think they were the same, but they’re actually the same target audience. They’re having a problem. If they can’t afford their beauty products, they’re not gonna be able to afford the architect.

Sam Sayer 32:12

For sure. So I think it’s always worth the conversation, isn’t it, to see. So what does working with you look like Sophie? What’s your process?

Sophie Davies 32:25

Sorry, say that again?

Sam Sayer 32:27

What’s your typical process? Is it starting with a call and then… wokring form there.

Sophie Davies 32:31

Yes so it’s starting with a call where we go into what your marketing issues are, because for me, it’s really important to dig into what you think is the problem, to understand, if you’ve got anything that you any work that you’ve done around your brand, positioning, what research you’ve done? Because a lot of people have done research. A lot of people are trying to get there, and what, what’s there. So it’s kind of really digging deep into that, and then it is going into the strategy first. So we always do the strategy first. I’m conscious that, you know, it depends on whether you want a taster, because there is, a, taster of what we do. I can do a Marketing Review first, or I go straight into strategy. So that’s the first project. And then after that, we look at, okay, what communications could we use? The reality is, most businesses that we work with are on social media, email and website. That’s the absolute core. I call it the brilliant basics. It’s core that you need to have, right? The messaging needs to go through all of those. So we tend to do a bit of a project around that. And then we talk about, how can we help you in the long term? And can you know, would a retainer be appropriate for us to either help or to provide strategic advice at the higher level? So yeah, that’s the process, really, I am. I’m quite strict on having a strategy. I think it’s really important. If you’ve done it yourself, that’s fine. So we can probably do it in a day. The reason I do it is actually to get to know your business. I need to know the business. Otherwise we’re again, we’re kind of making it up and going, Oh, well, we could do this. But actually I want to do everything really solid, because otherwise it’s kind of, oh yeah, maybe we do this. I want it to work, and particularly because it’s a long term thing, it’s not, you know, I can’t promise that you’re going to get immediate results. But, you know, because it takes up to six months to get branding updated messaging updated, website done. You know, all the Google My Business, all the LinkedIn profiles, it takes a while to get there. Yeah, so I can’t promise anything. It doesn’t mean we can’t do short term stuff, but yeah, it is about a long term relationship with us. Definitely. I know some people are always on the fence, on on retainers, but for me, it’s like having a personal trainer, you know, you’ve got that commitment. It’s things happen then. And actually, if you’re on a retainer, we’re much more likely. So I’ve got clients who have gone from retainers to projects at the moment, and the reality is I can’t give the same value, because I can’t go, you know, oh, we’re doing a brochure. Now, I happen to know this client very well, so I can do that. But you know, ultimately, you need to know the bigger picture. It’s like, what is happening. Certainly, for me, the bigger picture is so important. I had big discussions with an SEO agency that we use at the moment about, like, I need to know why we’re doing things, and look at it in the bigger picture and actually go, is pay per click for that campaign appropriate? No, it’s not right. We’ll find other ways of doing it. So, yeah, I think it’s very important to be able to take that step back.

Sam Sayer 35:58

I’m wrestling through the word rules, but you’ve kind of got like, a like, right? Does it work with this? Yes or no, okay, we’re not doing it, you know.

Sophie Davies 36:10

And will it bring value to the business? And that’s like for you guys. So our brief to you can be right, okay, the reality is, nobody goes on the website. We just need a website there for, like, people to go and look, make sure that you’re real, that you actually exist, yeah, or actually, you want to sell everything through your website, right? Okay? Because that’s, I think that’s the other thing as well, that I find, is that I can give realistic costs, and do recommendations, because a lot of the time you can get sucked into stuff. I, you know, I have had clients come to me and go, I’ve got to do Google ads. And I’m going ‘no you don’t.’ It’s too competitive. Or, you know, you’re not going to get the leads that you want. So an architect, for example, probably not appropriate. There might be, and there are ones that do it, but you know you, if you’re going to do it, you’ve got to be really local focused, because otherwise you are going to waste money. And because pay per click is not target specific, despite what everyone likes to think. Facebook ads, then it’s like, Oh, is that right? You know? So again, it’s that whole like, mix. And that’s why I like working with agencies as well, because you’ve also got experience. So we can work as a team, which makes it, you know, with the client, us and you guys, it’s a team of going actually, you know what? We’ve done that before and it doesn’t work, and we can kind of all work together to get the best for the client.

Sam Sayer 37:49

Absolutely, that’s the goal. Excellent. Well, we’ve already got another discussion planned. I think there’s another two or three topics from this we could explore deeper. I mean, yeah, this, it’s such a wide gamut. All right, well, let’s, wrap it up here. Then any, any final thoughts before we close?

Sophie Davies 38:12

No, I think, I mean, for me, it’s really exciting working with you guys. Certainly. You know, it’s really nice to have a very solid process to work so, like, we’ve really enjoyed working with you guys. So yeah, sorry, this bit of a plug for you.

Sam Sayer 38:31

Hey i’ll take it!

Sophie Davies 38:29

But overall, I think, you know, and I do think it’s worth having a chat if you do want to have an external person, because it doesn’t always feel comfortable to have someone external to the business, but, you know, we can always have a chat about it. I’m quite happy to talk to people about their marketing. And then, you know, even if it’s just actually, there’s no point me doing it, us doing anything you’re not at right stage, just go straight to DeType.

Sam Sayer 38:46

Fab. Last question, Marmite, love it or hate it?

Sophie Davies 39:06

Love it!

Sam Sayer 39:12

I got berated like there’s not enough Marmite on that toast.

Sophie Davies 39:18

It’s one of my favourite things. I spent a lot of time in France. I was born in France. I’ve got a real affinity with baguette with butter and marmite. My favourite.

Sam Sayer 39:29

It’s good, nice, right? On that note, then, thank you, Sophie, look forward to our next chat.

Sophie Davies 39:36

Bye!

Sam Sayer 39:36

All right, bye for now.