What is a digital marketing agency (and how do I get a job in one?)
Ever wondered about a career in marketing? Find out more about the different roles in a digital marketing agency and how you can get into the industry yourself.
What is a marketing agency - and how does it differ to working in-house?
If you go into marketing as a career, you'll meet people who are in-house - and that means your role is with one company you work for, looking after different aspects of their marketing.
Or, if you work in an agency like ours, then that means you get to work with different companies on different projects. Although we get to work with businesses across different industries, like many other agencies, we have specialist areas.
For example, while many Cambridge agencies focus on web development or PR, what we do is all about content. Starting with strategy, we help people develop a plan for their marketing, all based on creating the right content and using it to optimum effect. We do lots of upskilling too, so we deliver bespoke digital marketing training to in-house comms and marketing teams.
As for content, we create it all ourselves - video production, podcast consultancy, and managing social media campaigns - this is particularly interesting, especially if you like rummaging through data and getting into the nitty gritty of it!
Finally, there’s copywriting - and lots of it! We’re all about words here at Sookio, and communicating things simply and effectively. We write copy for websites, product descriptions, app store copy, brochures, press released and all sorts of other fun things!
Video created for the Greater Cambridgeshire Students Virtual Careers Fair - run by our friends at Form the Future and Cambridge Independent - to give students a behind-the-scenes glimpse into agency life.
What is a typical day in a marketing agency?
Every day is different, so you get to learn a lot - for example, one day I was going to train a team who runs a yacht decking business, then another we had a company who do ophthalmic devices.
We work with lots of clients in retail, science, tech and of course education - being located in the heart of Cambridge and neighbouring with the University of Cambridge and Anglia Ruskin University. There are lots of brilliant education companies around and we get involved in many fun projects with them.
Client meetings take us outside of Cambridge too; we might hop on a train to London for a networking event, fly to Germany for a conference, or even find ourselves on the beach at Cannes!
Above all things, if you want to start a career in marketing, it’s really important for you to stay curious.
You will get to travel around, but wherever you are, you’ll want to always be looking around you and questioning things; thinking about brands, working out why did this campaign work for them, why is this a good tagline, why is that video intriguing me, how are people going to react to this?
Or how can you balance work which is creative and interesting, but also gets solid results and of course meets the client’s brief.
There are many roles and duties our brilliant team here at Sookio shares, so let’s delve in to that to help you figure out what gets your heart pumping!
What are the different roles in a marketing agency?
Meet the team! There are many roles in a creative agency like ours, from strategy to copywriting to sales and marketing, social media and video production.
Read on to find out what our team members do here at Sookio and get an insight into the roles that are out there in marketing.
“I'm Sue and I'm the founder, which means I do lots of business development and I also work closely with our colleagues in sales, marketing and admin, just to make sure everything goes smoothly behind the scenes.”
Sue Keogh, Founder and Director
“I work with clients to produce video content for their websites, social media campaigns and also events. I do a lot of sales as well, so trying to win that work in the first place.”
Matt Harris, Head of Production
“I’m the Communications Manager, which means I spend a lot of time managing social media campaigns and getting creative with visual content. I also support our clients in helping them create brilliant content too!”
Marisa Crimlis-Brown, Communications Manager
“My job is to support clients, coming up with long-term plans for their online marketing. I also work with Google Ads and social media advertising to develop it further and one of the main parts of my role is to analyse the data.”
Clark Chapman, Digital Strategist
“As a copywriter, I write the wording for clients’ websites, but I also get to work on scripts, blog posts, social media campaigns, all sorts really! Plus lots of marketing content for Sookio, too!”
Victoria Di-Maio, Copywriting Lead
Essential tips for getting a job in marketing
Working in marketing is as fun and interesting as it sounds - but how do you get your foot in the door in the first place?
Having lots of experience recruiting and interviewing for various marketing positions, I wanted to share my tips and advice for job hunters and aspiring marketers hoping to get into the industry.
CV and covering letter are your first point of contact with a potential employer, so watch how you write and pay extra attention to the grammar and punctuation. Don’t get sloppy. Do your best to make a great first impression!
Your covering letter should say why you want to work in this particular company - and don’t be afraid to flatter the people a little bit! What products are they making? What services are they putting out there? Rummage through their social media channels.
Be confident in saying that you’re the right fit for this job. Explain what you can bring to the table and what skills have you got that will benefit the company.
Digital marketing is changing all the time. You might not know a cutting edge digital tool released last week, but you need to demonstrate your hunger for learning. I always want people who are handy, proactive, want to learn and trying to stay ahead of the trends. You don’t have to know everything, but that readiness to learn will get you far.
Do your research about the company. Don’t limit yourself to scanning their website - see if there are any local news they’re mentioned in, such as awards, look up their people on LinkedIn.
Hint: start with their social media, you can dig up a lot of helpful insights there!Trying to make the first contact without a job posting to respond to? Again, LinkedIn is your friend here. Don’t target the boss of the company, but approach someone lower down from a department you’re interested in. For example, if you’re looking to get into design, chat to their graphic designer. Those insights will also arm you with useful information for your covering letter!
Hungry for more career tips?
As part of Sookio Bootcamp, the week of remote work experience we held in August 2020, we ran a special careers advice session with myself and Kelly Molson from Rubber Cheese agency, sharing our experiences of hiring people for a combined total of over 25 years.
Watch the CV Clinic series of three videos to find out:
how to write a CV that grabs the employer’s attention
the trick to writing covering letters that win the employer’s attention
interview tips that’ll make you stand out (for all the right reasons!).
Want to work with Sookio?
Get a feel for us as a company by connecting on Twitter, Instagram, LinkedIn, Facebook and YouTube, then send your CV and covering letter to Sue Keogh at jobs@sookio.com.
