 In today's webinar, we are going to be talking about module three, which is marketing strategies and core concepts, and to do that, we have Amy Sandu joining us, who is the head of marketing. Welcome, Amy. Hello, everyone. I'm delighted to be here. So hopefully this next 30 minutes will be exciting and you will learn lots about marketing. Lovely. Well, we are so excited to have you. I know you have some slides prepared, so I'm going to hand the stage over to you for now, and then I'll come back at the end and do a Q&A with you. Wonderful. Thank you so much, Jennifer. So welcome. So today it's all about marketing, and I am from the CIM, which is the Chartered Institute of Marketing, which you might have already heard about. So before we go into any more detail, I thought I'd tell you a little bit about myself. So I am a Chartered Market here. I've got around 16 years of marketing and communications experience. And I've done all sorts of different things from stakeholder management, events, and obviously concepts in marketing, so branding and all sorts of different things. I've designed everything from brand identities to mobile apps, around with all sorts of different strategies for different organisations. And I've been quite lucky in terms of the people that I've worked with. So I've worked with people from entrepreneurs, political leaders, and even members of the Royal Family, which have been quite wonderful. And at the moment I am Vice-Chair for Education on the CIM West Midlands Board, which is who I'm presenting for today. So you will learn a little bit more about CIM and how you can get involved in your local board and how we can help you in your career going forward. And I also do sorts of charity work. So you will see me here on the screen doing a skydive, which was wonderful. An amp sale, which I probably would never do again. And I've done all sorts of marathons as well for different charities. And I thought I'd leave you with a bit of a fun fact. So last, well, two years ago now, prior to pre-COVID, I set my CEO at the time to the Amazon jungle, which was a true experience for him, but we raised lots of money for air ambulance. So it was really wonderful in a nutshell. So who have I worked for? So I thought I would make it a little bit more creative. So these are some of the brands that I've worked for in my career and worked with. So I've been quite lucky to have quite a broad range of different organisations and brands that I've worked with. And some of them you might recognise here in their logos. So everybody from kind of Cadbury's to Heineken to Breitling and even Virgin Galactic, which is all about kind of sending people to space, you probably have already heard about the news lately. So I thought I'd start with a bit of a quiz for you guys and let's see how much you actually know about branding and marketing. So you can either use a piece of paper if you have one in front of you or feel free to put your answers into the question and answers. I'm going to bring up something on the screen and I want you to kind of write it down to see if you recognise which brand I am talking about here. First one, finger looking good. Should be quite an easy one and hopefully you would get that. Give you a couple of seconds to put your answers in the chat bar or you can obviously write it down, whichever one is easiest. And then we will go to the next one and that is believing better. So again, I'm giving you different elements of the brand. And I just want you to try and see if you can guess which brand we are talking about here. Okay, the next one, I'm loving it. So I don't know if that rings anywhere else or you think, you know, that's a brand I recognise or I am familiar with. And lastly, think different. You might feel that these some of these are quite similar. But let's see how many of these you actually get right. Give you a couple, a couple, a second, four. And the next series of kind of things that will come up on the screen will be images. So again, I just want you to kind of familiarise yourself with that image and think which brand do you think Amy is trying to talk about here. Okay, so you can see that image there. So I don't know if you've seen that or you recognise it and you think, oh, I instantly know which brand that belongs to. And we have the next one. So he's a personality, but which brand do you think I am talking about when I show you Gary Linnicka. Hopefully that's an easy one. So I would hope that you will get that one. Okay, the next one, Snoop Dogg. If you know him or you know which brand I might be referring to when I put him on the screen. And the last one. See if that rings any bells. It caused a bit of a noise on social media, not long ago. And lastly, I'm going to share something to just bring us back into kind of a bit more recent times, which I'm sure you are all very, very familiar with. So series of three different images. I'm sure you all kind of know what that refers to. So hopefully you got most of these right. So we can go through to the different ones. Believe in better. Think different. I'm loving it. So you've got it. Let's start with the imagery. So the one on the bottom is a campaign that was all about hands face space in the pandemic. So I'm sure you're used to seeing those. The one with the Weetabix is Weetabix. And somebody, they had a campaign where they put beans on Weetabix. I don't know how many of you would actually try and do that. You have Snoop Dogg who has been doing all sorts of advertising for Just Eat. I'm sure you've seen some of his TV commercials. You've got Gary Lineker who is a real ambassador for Walkers and he's been doing that for a very long time. So I'm sure you recognize that. This very kind of funny image over here is obviously Money Supermarket. So I'm sure you've got some of those right. And hope you enjoyed that. So we'll go now crack on with what marketing is all about. So I'm not going to go heavily into all sorts of areas of marketing, but I'm going to just give you a few kind of snippets of what marketing is about and what it involves. And unfortunately, it's not going to be a lot of this. So if you are looking for careers in marketing, it's not going to be you taking lots of pictures or spending the company money or doing all sorts of things that are seen as what marketing is all about, even though there might be elements of that. I thought I'd just try and make sure that you don't think marketing is all about taking pictures and looking at what's around you. It's probably there's a lot more strategic stuff that goes on behind that. And this one I thought I'd share because when I kind of left university and school, a lot of people if you said that you were working in marketing, they thought it was all about coloring in and lots of pretty pictures and all that pink kind of fluffy stuff. So yeah, just let's go into what marketing actually involves. So here you can see is a marketing plan. So this is all about the different elements of marketing. So I will just kind of run through as a bit of a synopsis of what this kind of involves is when you're putting the marketing plan together or a campaign, you might actually go through the different stages where first of all, you might actually do like a pest analysis and look at what your kind of environments about, what your social and your technological, you will look at a bit of an audit and what it is that you want to kind of focus on. So as a jigsaw, it will then nicely lead you into objectives and what it is that we want to achieve with this campaign, with this marketing plan that you might be putting together. And one of the kind of real drivers of any kind of plan or marketing strategy is the strategy element of it where you will then use all sorts of different models that you can actually kind of pick up when you're studying marketing. So you can have a look at different matrices that will allow you to kind of look at and focus on where it is that you want the key bits of your marketing plan to focus on. So you've got all sorts of different things that you can look at like targeting and segmentation and positioning. There's all sorts of kind of elements that you can look at in terms of if it was a brand or a gap analysis. So I don't want to be very kind of theory heavy here. This is just to give you a bit of an idea and a flavor of what is involved in a marketing plan. So once you have a bit of an audit together, you've set your objectives, where you will then kind of look at your strategy, so your direction in terms of what it is that you want to achieve. And then that nicely kind of goes into the implementation stage. That is about how you would actually action your plan and your strategy. And then you will look at different kind of models that can help you do that. So the growth matrix is a really good one and a simple one to use. So that's about kind of putting your cash cows, your stars together. And that looks at your kind of products or your services and how they fit these models. And that will allow you to kind of focus on the 7Ps that you might have already kind of learned about and how you put those into action. And lastly, one of the most important for me, I think it is about monitoring and control. So all of this is about time and money and planning. So what you really want to kind of think about is how effective was the campaign that you ran. So monitoring it and looking at the control, the expectations of it, the effectiveness and the return on investment are all elements that you would actually then plan into and think about when you're kind of putting any kind of marketing plan together to make sure that you can then reflect on what worked really well and what didn't or what you might want to improve on, or any kind of things that you think that was a real good thing, but I'd probably change this here. And I'd look at, I had attracted lots of like 16 year olds, but I'd like to target a bit more of an older group. You might then want to change some of your frameworks that you've used in your plan going forward. So what is it all about? It's all about insights. So understanding your kind of market is very important and probably the most crucial thing that you will do. So it's about kind of if you were launching a new product or a new service, what that service or product does for the end customer is one of the key things that you need to kind of really get your head around before you do any kind of fancy marketing and spend any money. It's all about kind of making sure that you're hitting the right target people at the right time. And then defining any kind of upcoming trends and if they suit your market is another one that you might want to kind of really think about and go away as a team and look at. And knowing that there's a range of options for gathering kind of relevant information on marketing is another good one to think about when you start your plans. And championing the customer. For me, I think with all the kind of different things that I've done, one of the key things that you need to look at is your customer research. So who is your end customer? Who is this service or this product aimed at? You know, who are they every day? What kind of car do they drive? What kind of brands do they already, you know, kind of look at? For example, you might be a brand that's aiming at people that go to the gym. So then you might realize that, oh, okay, this person is actually buying from gym sharks. So they are, you know, taking grenade products. So those two brands already you could look at then how you work with them. What are they doing to target their customers and how you can then set up your plan. So segmentation, targeting and positioning, again, is really important that we've kind of touched on in terms of the plan earlier that I showed you. So that is all about kind of looking at the different groups of customers that you are aiming at. How can you actually get your marketing across to them? What makes them think? So these days we have all sorts of different channels like social media and, you know, Tiktok and Instagram. And, you know, you've got all sorts of out of home activity as well. So there's so much you can actually kind of do, but it's quite easy to spend a large bulk of money and then still not get that return that you want. So it's really important that you actually do quite a lot of thinking prior to choosing what you want to do. And then what influences your customer behavior is another really good one. So for me, I think in my career, I found that customer behavior is really, really fascinating. And most of you might want to start to look at that. And there's a whole raft of different elements that you can go into here about what makes people shop the way they do, what makes them attracted to different brands. Even people have kind of gone into the kind of the science element of that. So you certain stores will have, I don't know if you have been into certain stores that sell candles or scents and stuff. They actually have certain smells and the way that the stores lit will actually help that customer behave in a certain way. So there's all sorts of things that you might want to kind of think about in your marketing strategies going forward. So these are all things that are very cleverly done by different brands to help that customer feel, you know, connected to their brand. And then to be kind of applying and adapting your marketing strategies, it's all about getting that customer to resonate with you as a brand, you know, what they kind of feel, what they listen to, what they think. And the way you communicate with your customer will be really key for you to actually get them on board. And then kind of speaking to them and stakeholders in a different way is very, very vital as well. So you might do that in a numerous kind of ways. You might look at online campaigns. You might do, you know, your website, your mobile app, your collateral. The way someone comes into your store, for example, if you're a service like a hotel, the way someone comes into reception. All these things are really, really clever ways of how you can communicate with your customer to make sure that they are loyal to you going forward. And then you're working closely with them as well because you're giving them what they're actually looking for. So we go into the key bit, which is all about strategy and planning. So you will plan as much as you plan. So in marketing, a lot of people don't think that there's any much of a planning element to it. I have to say in my kind of working career, one of the biggest things and the most time consuming is planning. So you plan, plan, plan all the time. And I think that's a really good element to kind of learn early on. You can do all sorts of kind of techniques of how you do your plans. And it might be as simple as an Excel spreadsheet where you might just have like a timeframe or a plan of what you're going to do and how you're going to do that. And these are kind of things that if you can learn early on in your career, I think they will be very, very valuable for you. And this is where all that insight as well that we've just spoke about comes into play. And then interpreting the relevant information and the insight to recommend strategic decisions. So basically what I mean here is you might run a campaign on TikTok and realise that no one actually engaged with it. And then you will look into the elements of what your downfalls might have been. Was it because the person that you had as an ambassador on TikTok doing the video wasn't clear enough? Like people couldn't hear them or understand them or didn't resonate with them and didn't connect that person with your brand. So earlier when we did that exercise about different brands, even though sometimes I've just put in a word like I'm loving it or, you know, finger-licking good, for example. Instantly you might have thought, I know exactly what that brand is. I might turn around and say, oh, a big yellow M. I wonder if anyone knows what brand that relates to. So instantly you would think, oh, McDonald's. So they're the kind of things that you want to think about. And then that insight that you gather when you run your first campaign is really key that will tell you which audiences, which kind of people connected with the brand or didn't connect to the brand. And it's not, it's okay to actually look at the negatives as well. So it's not going to all be positive. Sometimes you might have certain people say that, oh, we didn't react to this coloring or this brand or the person you've used as an ambassador hasn't really worked for us. That's okay, because that is learning for your next strategy and your next marketing plan of how you can look at different things that didn't work this time round. And then as you move up in your career, you might start off quite junior and then you'll work your way up into the kind of management roles. And trust me, the planning just does not stop. So as you first land your first kind of, you know, graduate role or even as some work experience that you might do and you might find yourself doing quite a lot of planning. So like we said at the start, it's not all kind of coloring different pictures and all nice pink fluffy stuff. There is a quite a different start side of marketing as well where it's all about planning and kind of tactful thinking and the insights and looking at the data that you're gathering. And from that you will make key decisions as well. So if you have that in the back of your mind about project management and planning, it will enable you to make the right decisions on anything that you work up. So here we, I'm just, I'm not going to go into this in too much detail, but this is a professional kind of competency wheel here. And these are really good types of kind of skills for you to think about when you're kind of heading out into the real kind of world. So I do like to kind of include this in there because more and more now organizations are actually looking at your competencies and how you meet them. So if you look at the wheel here, you've got creative, influencing, collaborative, responsible, you know, and within that you have risk and reputation, partnership, marketing, customer experience, product management. So if you think about those in a more of a simpler form, when you go out from your work experience or you might go for a summer intern or a program over summer. If you think about these competencies and how you meet them, it will allow you to have that slightly competitive edge going into the workforce about how you meet those. So you might want to just put this into a simple, you know, PowerPoint and look at how you meet the creative. You might say, I'm really creative. I've, you know, got my own mobile app or I run the social channel. I created this campaign that's gone into like a local magazine. So you meet that competency and you say how you've met that influencing, you know, I'm in a local club. I'm in a kickboxing club and I influence the leaders to have like a ladies only class, for example. So you have met those. You've got that competency there and how you've met that that will allow you to actually kind of think forward into when you go into a work interview or, you know, go for something that you'd like to volunteer for. You can actually show how you're meeting competencies. So it's good to have this in the back of your pocket. Going forward, it just allows you to kind of champion yourself to kind of potential employers and even people like CIM with very much about how the competencies are met within the professional arena, but also for yourselves as well as students. And then I wanted to kind of touch on this is what I wish I'd been told when I was in the position that you guys are now. The key thing is never limit your horizons be open to opportunities and ideas. Sometimes you might have in your mind, oh, definitely want to go into marketing and then you, you know, might be offered a role over summer that's not marketing. No, I have to be marketing. Sometimes it's actually a really good thing to do something different that allows you to explore what you're really good at, what drives you, what makes you you. So, you know, I would always say that if you are given an opportunity, try and set it and take it forward. Whatever that might be, even if it's not in your chosen career, because sometimes you actually pick up and realize that I'm really good at analysis and really good at data. And then, you know, that can kind of help you steer your career to where you want it to be and stay on top of your learning. So it doesn't ever stop. This is where CIM can kind of, you know, help you as well. So there's all sorts of different resources that you can have access to. We'll share our channels at the end so you can more than happily share, you know, kind of connect with us and ask for help. Never be afraid to put yourself out there. I think that when I was a student, sometimes I'd hold back and think, oh, I don't want to ask that question. Or I don't want to ask for help. You know, I don't want to come across, I don't know what I'm doing. It's okay. Ask the silly question. Ask for help. That's all about your learning experience and trust me. I'm here today presenting to you guys. And I didn't think when I was at school that I'd be doing presenting. And you just don't know where your career and your kind of experiences will take you. So never be afraid of putting yourself out there. And keep a record of your training. So it's a really good habit to get into. So if you start to look at what you've done, so outside of school, outside of college, what you're actually doing. So you might be doing some sort of extracurricular activities with a local charity or volunteering. You might have attended a couple of webinars. Note them all down. You can simply put them into a simple document. Just keep on track of what you're doing and how you're doing it. It will just allow you to keep a record when you go for that first job. You can say, look, these are the training courses I've done. These are the extra kind of activities I've been involved in. These are the volunteering things that I've done. It just allows that employer to see you as a full character. It really allows you to kind of market yourself in the right way. And then connect with people. I think it's all about kind of connecting with the right people around you. So this is, again, where CIM can get involved with your kind of careers going forward. For me personally, CIM has been this kind of strong connection as I left university where I felt very protected in this little bubble. And then I was out in the real world into the work where I felt kind of not so protected. But CIM was that kind of shadow board that always was there with the resources, with the people. And I think that's what you guys can benefit from as well. So who are we? So CIM, West Midlands is a board member. There's where I'm a board member. There's other board members that have all sorts of different experience and backgrounds. You can follow the links here to follow us on LinkedIn and also on Twitter. I'm more than happy for you guys to connect with me as well on LinkedIn. And also we have a website where you can look for jobs and be part of that kind of CIM community. So it gives you that strategic kind of background as you're kind of leaving school and college and thinking about what your kind of careers will be. CIM is like this friend, let's say, that's always with you. Ever since you started studying marketing all the way to your professional kind of careers, you might kind of start off in one element of marketing. For example, you might be doing a bit of social media. And then you might think, oh, actually, I really like the strategy side of things. So you can take up a qualification through the CIM that you can study remotely or at your local centre. And it allows you to kind of branch out into other elements of marketing. So that's me. And hopefully you've enjoyed that. I know there's a lot that I've covered, but here's the details if you do want to connect with us. And we will take any questions if you have any. Thank you so much, Ammi. I was kicking myself on one of the pictures. It was the first one I was thinking, I know that advert. I love that advert, but I couldn't think of the company. But yeah, it just shows if you market things well that has a really strong image and people will always remember it and a really good insight into different marketing strategies as well. We have had some questions come through and just for the last five minutes, I'm going to ask away some questions to you. So the first one, do you think that there is an ideal degree for a career in marketing or is it open to doing any kind of degree? Yeah, so I will give you my own example. I actually studied for an IT degree and then I went and worked for Capgemini. And that's where I actually realised that I'm more of a marketing person. So I went back and did a Masters in Marketing. So you can do general marketing degrees or you can actually do one Pacific as well. So it's more about finding out where you want to kind of end up. So if you really enjoy the branding element because you thought that exercise was great or you're more of a data analytical person, you can actually specialise in that. And the beauty about CIM is that you can actually qualify in a certain area of marketing once you know what that is. So there's a raft of things that you can have a look at. Lovely, thank you. And someone's just asking about if you know of any reading that you would recommend they do for a marketing degree or just generally towards a marketing. Any specific articles, documentaries, books or anything that you could recommend? Oh, there's so, so many. So yeah, I think that you would again, I would definitely go back to having a look. There's so much on marketing that you can get quite overwhelming. So just look at what actually, you know, you're passionate about, if you're passionate about campaigns, you know, you like the thought of actually running a campaign for a leading company or you actually would like to go more into strategy. So if you can, I think I have one here as well. Bit like a loopy to moment. So there's a book here called Campaign It, which is a really good one to read if you just want to kind of look at the creative elements of marketing. And then we can always kind of share a list of kind of top reads. If that would be helpful as well. Brilliant. Thanks so much. I'm sure that would be helpful because I know sometimes it can feel overwhelming when you're a bit younger to know where to start. You know, there's so many books, which one do you choose? And then another question is someone's considering having a gap year and what activities would you recommend they do to enhance their marketing experience while they're on a gap year? Oh, yeah, wonderful. So I think one of the key things that were really beneficial for me is like volunteering. So that can be any kind of form. So even exciting stuff like skydives and, you know, upsells and stuff. What you're learning from that is how you tick as a person. And as a gap year, you can actually try and reach out to a brand or an organization that's local and say, look, you know, I'm a student. I'd really like the experience for even if it's a couple of week guys like never feel even a week can be quite powerful in the workplace where you're around the right people. And then when you are there, never not feel that you can ask the questions. Oh, why are we doing this? Or why do you do that? You're absorbing all of that in. So yeah, definitely try and look at local companies. And, you know, CIM can even help you with that if you join the board and see if there's even like as a West Midlands board. We don't even mind if you wanted to take over one of our digital channel just to get experience on social media. So yeah, really, really valuable. Thanks, Annie. Now, I think we've got just enough time for one more question. I would like to know what is your favorite part of your job? I think for me personally is when I do a campaign and then I see my own campaign on a billboard or on TV and then someone else from reacting to it, you're not knowing it's my campaign. And I do quite a lot where the campaigns help other people. So it's about kind of behavior change. And for me, that's the most powerful because I feel like I've made a difference in the work that I do. It must be such a nice feeling when someone goes, ah, I love that campaign. I did that. Yeah. And just seeing all that kind of all those hours of planning and working with these different brands. And then you look back and you think, yeah, I've actually made a difference to somebody. So yeah, that's quite rewarding. Yeah, seeing your hard work pay off, definitely. Well, thank you so much, Amy. That's all we have time for today. And that is a wrap on this session. Thank you to everyone who sent in questions. We had some really good ones in there. And thank you so much, Amy, for all of your wisdom today and sharing your knowledge with us. We really do appreciate it.