Marketing Study Lab - Actionable Marketing Knowledge: Developing Future Marketers with Dan Hardaker the Head of Digital Design at Proctor + Stevenson

Hello, I’m the Lego Master of Marketing!

Odd statement to start a profile, but go with it, it’ll make sense.

You know when you have loads of Lego all over the floor and it just looks like one big pile of nothingness. Not only does it look a mess, it’s a pain when you stand on it.

I take these bricks and start to make sense of how they all fit together.

If your marketing feels like a pile of painful Lego, let’s chat and get those building blocks fitting together: peter@marketingstudylab.co.uk

Why is this an issue?

The biggest problem facing todays marketing departments is the severe lack of qualified marketers, which usually happens by accident.

It’s not your fault, this usually happens by accident.

Perhaps there was an immediate need to design a website or create some literature and you needed someone to coordinate this – before you know it, Mark is the new marketing department.

Maybe your business has experienced some rapid growth, expanded and was looking to promote within or Andrea from customer service fancied her hand at marketing and is now in charge of all corporate comms.

Or perhaps your competition is way too active on social media and you feel you need to be present on this platform as well. Get Hayley to post ‘stuff’ – she’s young enough to understand how to do this.

You get the idea!

These circumstances lead to 100s of hours of wasted time and money by focusing on the short-term tactics rather than a long-term strategic approach that will make a difference.

Even worse than this, the misplaced management of employees creates missed business opportunities, leaving money on the table that many didn't even know was there!

Hello, I’m Peter!
I can help with this.

I’ve been there, seen Marketing Departments churning out worthless tactical marketing communications that do nothing but damage a company’s reputation, wasting peoples time and reducing, not building long-term brand value.

I specialise in training programmes that will alter the mind-set of lost / forgotten / unqualified marketer's, by developing the skills needed to confidently create successful, long-term marketing strategies that generate business opportunities.

How is this done? Tell me, tell me now!

Quite simply by removing the pain points and problems than many marketers face as they haven’t had the training or been given the opportunity to develop their marketing skills through;

Strategic Marketing Planning
Professional Marketing Qualifications
Marketing Training Days
Mentoring
Tutoring

Any business that is not benefiting from the opportunities marketing will create is missing out MASSIVELY! The chances are that the marketing tactics that are being deployed focus on pushing the wrong messages of ‘Buy. This. Now’ to the wrong people (who don’t even care you exist), creating minimal awareness and even less success.

Positioning a company through a strategic marketing approach, not only carves out a point of difference for a company to differentiate themselves from the competition, but creates a unique proposition within the marketplace that highlights the problems it helps to fix for those that care enough to seek out this solution. Moving a company from a wasteful and unwanted push strategy to one that creates value where customers will actively gravitate towards this value proposition.

This changes your marketing and the marketing department from being viewed as a cost centre that haemorrhages money, to the department that creates value and saves money in the long-term.

And here’s a little bit of social proof for you:

‘It is refreshing to see someone with a passion for the profession producing such valuable content for others to learn from.’

‘He was genuine and very honest in his approach and it was a pleasure working through this with Peter. An ‘out of the box’ thinker, he enabled me to consider different approaches'.

Happy Marketing
Peter

www.marketingstudylab.co.uk

I would love to get your feedback on how I can improve the podcast or what you would like to hear in forthcoming episodes so either leave a comment or contact me directly - peter@marketingstudylab.co.uk

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Developing Future Marketers with Dan Hardaker the Head of Digital Design at Proctor + Stevenson – Episode 89

Dec 10, 2019

Guest and Episode Links

Dan Hardaker
Website: https://www.proctors.co.uk
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/proctorsbristol/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/proctorandstevenson/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/ProctorsBristol
Twitter: https://twitter.com/ProctorsBristol

YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/user/proctorsvideos/videos

Resource:
Medium: https://medium.com

App:
Seesaw: https://web.seesaw.me

Enjoy the Episode - Happy Marketing!

www.marketingstudylab.co.uk
https://www.linkedin.com/in/petersumpton/
https://www.facebook.com/groups/marketingstudylab/
https://twitter.com/cousinp81
(@cousinp81)

Intro

Our guest this week brings two huge Marketing worlds together – The creative and the Digital. Dan Hardaker is the Head of Digital Design at Proctor + Stevenson, a full-service B2B marketing agency working across creative, strategy and technology.

What makes this such an intriguing chat, is that Proctor + Stevenson have a long history with developing the next generation of design talent, which is just engrained into the P+S culture. Dan is perfectly placed to shed some light on how to develop as a Marketer and if qualifications or practical application is more important. Spoiler alert, it’s a bit of both, but you know that by now anyway.

Takeaways

- When looking for a job, be it your first one or indeed that next step up. Dan believes that you are better to find a company that provides mentorship as well as learning and development opportunities. If you find one that offers this then you will also get the opportunity, one day, to be the mentor yourself. And that is juts an amazing feeling – I’m talking from experience here.

- Dan also believes that there are pros and cons to getting a Marketing Qualification.

Pros - It’s a spring-board to a career and it provides the grounding and foundations you need

Cons - There is a valuable resource in starting work and learning those practical skills rather than the theory behind it

The correct answer. Do both – Study and get a job that fits in with your studies. Or get a job and study around this.

- And finally. One key word for those that are yet to experience the working environment. Pace – Be prepared for the speed at which things need to be delivered. Usually yesterday or in an hour is fine, but embrace the fear that comes with any role and enjoy the process of learning and developing, until you yourself, become the teacher.

Music Featured on this Podcast:
Sleepy in the Garden
Lobo Loco www.musikbrause.de
Creative Commons License