In March 2016, our team re-structured into two core areas; new guest acquisition and existing guest retention. In this change, I was promoted to Acquisition Marketing Manager and given the responsibility of leading the new guest acquisition team. This meant I now had the opportunity to lead a team, and was responsible for all above the line marketing, including TV creative development, Radio, Cinema and sponsorship. In line with the promotion, my influence on the wider marketing efforts of the business grew. Some of my proudest achievements in this role include;- Driving growth through diversified investment: With the autonomy to make decisions across the marketing mix, I took the opportunity to get under the skin of our brand health tracking and econometric modelling. Alongside our media agency we identified key routes to growth through some subtle (and some larger) adjustments to our typical media laydown, as we understood our main barriers.- Diversifying my skill set: With the addition of ATL media, came the responsibility for its creative execution. A steep learning curve ensued, but I love a challenge and was very proud to deliver multiple Radio and TV / Cinema campaigns, plus 2x standalone TV sponsorship's (The Voice Kids in 2017 being a highlight, given the logistics involved!). I really enjoyed immersing myself in the creative process, and this side of the role gave me the opportunity to meet and learn from some amazing people across the creative agencies and production companies I worked with.- Growing as a leader: To coincide with my promotion, I’d been chosen to attend Bourne Leisure’s ‘Way of Leading’ programme in association with Wilson Learning, and throughout the course learnt some invaluable skills to help me nurture and grow a strong team. I discovered a passion for developing people and am proud to say that during my time in this role, 2 of my team went on to achieve promotions within the business.

Due to my growing passion for digital marketing in my previous role, I jumped at the opportunity to make that the focus of my next role – becoming Butlin’s Digital Marketing Manager in December 2014.In this new role, I was responsible for developing, implementing and leading our digital marketing strategy for both the Butlin's Family and Butlin's Live Music Weekends brands, alongside our media agency. Some of my proudest achievements in this role were;- Completing Google Squared Digital Marketing Qualification: The highlights for me were around the changing ways in which consumers and brands are interacting as a result of digital, creating digital communication strategies for your audience and understanding the importance of data.- Challenging the traditional marketing mix (and winning some awards along the way!):Working closely with our media agency, we took a calculated risk and drastically scaled back our traditionally ATL investment, and invested 10% of this saving into online video.The results were award winning; We delivered 25% more bookings through online video compared to Brand TV – with just 10% of the budget. The campaign won a Bronze DMA award and a Gold PMA award.- Smart use of data to build relationships with prospective guestsWe created a data led re-targeting strategy, that allowed us to serve users with relevant content across multiple devices, and through various platforms and channels such as social media, programmatic display, online video and native ads.In paid search, we developed a ‘mobile first’ skew, reflecting the growing habits of our prospective guests. This allowed us to ensure we have a higher quality of traffic arriving to our site, which in turn led to improved performance and an increase in efficiency. Our efforts were featured on Think with Google, and Google considered our re-targeting and mobile first approach to be 5 years ahead of our competitors.

In this role, myself and two colleagues were responsible for the ATL and BTL sales and marketing of 60 Live Music Weekends throughout the year across the three Butlins resorts. Each year there are over 350,000 tickets available for events ranging from ‘The Great British Folk Festival’ to ‘Back Together featuring ITV2 show The Big Reunion’.Some of my key achievements in this role include:Re-branding of Live Music Weekends:Research highlighted the eclectic mix of break propositions in our portfolio, so we re-branded to ensure our events are clearly differentiated and look credible within the live music industry. The re-branding was very well received, and this was, and continues to be, reflected in sales.Designing and implementing bespoke behavioural email journeys:Working closely with our data and insight team to understand the online behaviour of our target audience, I designed and implemented a suite of behavioural email journeys that have led to incremental sales for the business.Securing new revenue streams:In early 2014, we secured an agreement with See Tickets to sell our weekenders through their website. Selling our events through third parties had never been done before, and this particular channel placed our brand in a relevant forum that enhances our credibility in the industry. New product development:The team and I developed a range of new product propositions for our events to help evolve the guest experience and give prospective guests even more reasons to come on a Live Music Weekend. These new experiences go live in 2015.Online acquisition testing:While working exclusively with Live Music Weekends, I began working closely with the Online Marketing Manager to test and devise an online acquisition plan for our weekenders. Through testing different approaches in different channels including PPC, display and affiliate partners we devised a robust online marketing plan that supports all break types to the required level.

As a Campaign Manager I was finally able to get my teeth into creating and leading my own marketing campaigns across multiple channels.My first campaign happened to be our biggest mailing of the year - the annual brochure launch. This project was particularly exciting to lead, as it was using new branding that had been in development for some time. The campaign gave me the opportunity to display my versatility through not only working across multiple channels, but doing so with what was in essence a new brand and tone of voice. The campaign was a success, and served as a platform for use of the brand in future campaigns.This role also gave me my first experience of managing a developing others, with two marketing executives reporting into myself and two other colleagues. I really enjoyed this aspect of being a Campaign Manager, as having moved up from Marketing Executive I understood both roles and the relationship between the two. I was able to impart my learnings and experiences of how to get the most out of the role, and where I thought their personal development opportunities were. One of the Executives I worked with has since been promoted to Campaign Manager.I was also able to engage my passion for data insight and analysis through delving into my campaign results and understanding key insights into consumer interactions with the brand. This allowed be to conscious of what was working, what could be improved, and present opportunities for future campaign development.

My main responsibilities as a Marketing Executive were to manage all national press and magazine advertising for the brand, while also owning the prospect/new guest data pot via the brochure request and fulfilment journey. In this role, I had creative license with artwork and messaging to trial new ideas and test different designs with a view to optimising response rates from my channels. A particular success was the creation of an ad that significantly increased response rate for Live Music Weekends in national press, which had historically been a challenge for the brand.Through working with prospect data and brochure request/fulfilment, I was able to demonstrate my ability to create and test new conversion methods in an attempt to optimise the new prospect experience during their first interaction with the brand. A key success in this area was the introduction of an automated email 'welcome journey' for prospects to introduce them to the brand and help them to buy from us. As a Marketing Executive I was also able to develop my skill set for managing third party agency teams through regular meetings and discussion with our media agencies and fulfilment house.

In my first role at Butlins, my primary function was to support the Campaign Manager responsible for producing all direct mail marketing collateral for the brand. This involved delivering print campaigns to a strict deadline and within budget, ensuring the messaging was aligned to the brand strategy and overarching campaign goals.

This was my one year industrial work placement, where I worked closely with the consumer database to provide insight and analysis to support marketing initiatives.

This role also formed the basis of my final year dissertation, titled 'Assessing how best to acquire new customers for the Accu-Chek brand through market segmentation and direct to consumer offline marketing'.