We are delighted to share this guest post from Kate Bielich who graduated from Edinburgh with a 2:1 Business Management degree in June 2016. She took up a role as a Digital Marketing Executive with Attacat, an Edinburgh based marketing agency. One year on, here’s her thoughts on the industry and life in a small but buzzing agency.
PPC, SEO, CEO, ASR, CTR, CPC, CRO the list of acronyms used day to day in digital marketing can be endless, and it’s one of the many things you need to learn pretty quickly when you start.
I had never thought of a career in digital marketing, and to be totally honest I never fully knew what it would entail. This is a great industry to work in as everything is still so new, it’s growing quickly and changes constantly. Even after only being here a year things have changed massively and you need to make sure you stay ahead of the curve.
As with starting at any small company, you’re thrown in the deep end and and have to learn to swim pretty quickly, you learn fast and are given serious responsibility from the get go. For someone like me who loves a challenge this environment was perfect. Not to say it wasn’t tough, but what first job isn’t.
Working in the PPC (Pay-Per-Click) team I am responsible for a number of our clients paid advertising across Google, Bing and Facebook. This involves juggling a number of clients, their budgets, targets and demands. Time management and multitasking are definitely crucial skills, there is no clock watching here. The day flies by and you need to make sure you use it well, as well as ensuring there are at least two games of ping pong played throughout the day.
As I mentioned before, you are given real responsibility from the start, managing your own list of clients. There is opportunity to have an input and voice your opinion from the get go, your ideas are heard and valued, which is great because you can feel that you are making an impact.
Another benefit of working in a small agency is that you get to see all aspects of digital marketing. Even though I am in the PPC team I have exposure to the SEO, creative and measurement teams. I’ve especially enjoyed learning more about tracking and measurement, an area I never thought I would enjoy as it involves a small amount of coding.
So am I happy I stumbled into a career in digital marketing… definitely. I am even more glad that I chose to work in a small agency, that is growing rapidly and where there is plenty of opportunity to develop and move up the ranks.
Attacat are currently advertising on MCH – they have 3 digital marketing roles available for graduates able to start in November: https://mycareerhub.ed.ac.uk/students/jobs/detail/464425/digital-marketing-jobs-for-gra
