Lou completes City & Guilds in Marketing & goes national!

This week (6th June 2013) Louise, The Marketing Collective's Marketing Executive, featured in the Daily Mail following the completion of her City and Guilds in Marketing.Here's the full interviewWhy did you want to go into marketing?I was certain that Physio Therapy was the career choice for me and this is what I was studying at Barton Peveril college in Eastleigh. However, after a year of college I realised it wasn’t for me and that I wanted to get out into the workplace.Whilst at school and college, I did work experience with a Southampton based destination marketing company where I worked with Jo Andrews who was the marketing manager. Sadly, in August 2010, the company went into liquidation but Jo decided set up a new business called The Marketing Collective to continue working with clients and producing publications. I had kept in touch with Jo and once I realised that college was no longer what I wanted to do, I contacted Jo to see if there was any opportunity to work with her again.  I particularly liked working with her on the projects – it always seemed so creative and fun coming up with campaigns, but I also wanted to understand a little more and learn the principles behind marketing.Jo was at a point with the business where she was needing to grow and take on more staff so she asked me if I would like to do an apprenticeship in marketing.How did you make yourself stand out?I guess I did not really have to compete with anyone else in a normal ‘recruiting’ process due to having already worked with Jo. In some ways, you could say that my work experience had been the recruitment process! Whenever I worked with Jo I always did my best and pushed myself. I remember one time I secured over £500 in retail sales in a day for a visitor map the company produced. It was things like this that I reminded Jo about in our conversations. I have always been keen to learn and I mentioned to Jo that I wanted to bring what I was learning to The Marketing Collective to help it grow.How has the City & Guilds apprenticeship helped you?City & Guilds has really helped me because they have given me a chance to really learn more about marketing and the principles behind it. Many people often think that marketing is a bit ‘wishy washy’ but that is far from the truth. There are lots of strategies, planning and analysis behind our marketing campaigns and the training I had with my City and Guilds helped me understand and contribute to these processes. I see my apprenticeship as a good opportunity to gain a qualification whilst I am working and that it given me a foundation that I can take me onwards and upwards!What are you doing now?I have just completed and received my certificates in Level 2 NVQ Certificate in Marketing and a Level 2 certificate in Principles of Marketing, so I am putting the knowledge into practice. I am working on one of The Marketing Collective’s biggest clients, Hampshire’s Top Attractions which has involved planning a summer awareness campaign in shopping centres and I am running all their social media.I really enjoy working on social media campaigns – I like the immediacy of it – you can see straight away what works and what doesn’t. It is quantifiable and you can show tangible outcomes as a result of social media activity.One of the strangest things I’ve had to do was to promote the launch of our 2013 publications by wearing a dress made from the pages of the visitor guides. It was good fun seeing the dress take shape – and even funnier posing in the rain wearing my paper dress.Jo and I are looking to find the next step for me which is going to be within Digital media and Content Marketing as this where the industry is going – I hope we can find a qualification within this field for me to progress onto.What advice you would give to others looking to start an apprenticeship?One piece of advice I would give to anyone thinking about going into an apprenticeship is to not be scared of going into the working world or apprehensive about the workload. There are always lots of people around you to support you and help you.Don’t be afraid to ask for help and to question things if you don’t understand – it is the quickest way to learn!Always believe in yourself - aim high and you will achieve your goals, just like I have!