Hi. My name is Kim, and I have just completed my first week at Generate UK. Before this week, I had no idea what ‘online marketing’ was, and now, with the help of my new colleagues I can give you a very short and brief explanation of what I have discovered (as my knowledge is still limited, but I’m working on that). 

‘Online marketing’ doesn’t mean an awful lot to someone like me, who had never given it much thought. From what I have realised, a company’s website is crucial to advertising their products or services and to help raise awareness of their brand. This is done by building and designing an aesthetically pleasing site, which has all the different functions a company may require, for example, purchasing goods online. Although, once a website has been created it needs to be marketed effectively, otherwise it is completely useless as nobody would know that it existed, and it would go to waste. It can be marketed using: 

• Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) - This increases visibility in search engines escalating the venue’s profile, by improving search engine listings.
• Email marketing campaigns - sending highly targeted emails to a selection of people to promote a client.
• Pay per click - advertising via the internet using search engines.
• Content management systems are used to manage a business’s site.
• And a few more that I haven’t grasped yet, but I’m in the process of familiarizing myself with them.

Once I managed to come to terms with SEO and all that jazz, it was time to start making the phone calls and to book meetings with potential clients. In preparation, I did some ghost calls, where he would pretend to be a potential client, and I would attempt to sell Generate UK’s services. This was very entertaining, as my colleague got into different characters to make it more authentic, but as a result, I couldn’t stop laughing! Nonetheless, they proved to be very useful, and prepared me for the different reactions I received. The rest of the team helped me feel really relaxed, were very encouraging, and great at explaining all the technical terms I struggled with, and they all managed with my excessive amount of questions fired at them.

The biggest challenge I came across this week was; the term ‘search engine optimisation’ (which still sounds a bit alien). The challenge lies with learning about what Generate UK actually does and then attempting to sell their services… What a challenge that was. But, now I’ve got the basic knowledge I need, and my confidence is slowly growing, I’ll look forward to achieving even more next week and having fun along the way.

I’ll look forward to continuing my journey next week, and sharing it with you.