8 minute read
Spotlight on Jessica Shailes
Was marketing something that you always knew you wanted to get into? Of some sort, yes. I think that over time I’ve focused in on digital marketing. I wanted to be a psychologist when I was at school, but I didn’t really fancy the years and years of qualifications, the expense and everything else. I went to a career guidance counsellor and I said, “Well, I enjoy psychology, but I want to make lots of money.” So they suggested advertising or the advertising industry!
Advertisement
The course that I picked for my degree was one that was very vocational and would filter into the advertising industry or had really good ties with agencies in London. But, by the time I’d actually finished that course, I changed my mind. I still liked marketing, but the advertising industry didn’t appeal to me in the same way. Instead, I looked at other things.
How did you end up as the MD of The Ideal Marketing Company?
I ended up joining The Ideal Marketing Company because when I moved back to Market Harborough I went networking and I met a guy called Alastair Campbell, who was the founder of company. We talked and I started to do their website stuff working as a freelancer and then eventually joined the team.
The Ideal Marketing Company has been going since 2003 and was more about the traditional marketing, like PR, advertising, strategy and things like that. A lot of content and websites had become part of what they did, but it was outsourced. They were working with another partner. So when I joined the team, I brought the digital marketing into it. And now it’s not just me,there are other people on the team who specialise in the digital marketing areas.
It was tragic circumstances that led to you eventually buying the business. Alastair passed away, an untimely death and quite a shock for everybody. Do you want to say a little bit about that and what you now do to honour his memory?
Sure. Alastair was definitely a larger than life character. He was very well known locally. Part of that is because he helped so many people. He was very active in the Chamber Of Commerce and different networking groups. It was a surprise because he was so healthy and 49 at the time when he collapsed. As a company, we rallied together to do what we could do to support Alastair and his wife Helen, who ran the company with him. Helen is still an important part of what we do today.
When Helen made the decision that she didn’t want to continue to run Ideal she asked me if I would consider taking over, and we worked together on that. It was important there’s this balance between making something your own, but also honouring what came before you. There’s a reason why I worked for The Ideal Marketing Company for that many years - I believed in the values and I still do believe in the values that got us to where we are. It’s no effort for me to continue the same values that Alastair already had.
We work closely with De Montfort University. I do some guest lecturing and we’ve worked with them at the Leicester Business Festival. We’re now running the annual Alastair Campbell Marketing Mentor Award.
It’s for marketing students on their marketing courses. They put together business plans as part of their qualification and then the top four or five are shortlisted. I review them from a more professional perspective - would I be happy to put this in front of clients, is there good reasoning and it relates to business objectives? The kinds of things that we would care about as a real-world marketing agency. One of those entries wins the award. With that they get work experience with us.
What’s your why? Essentially helping businesses to fulfil their potential. There are a lot of great products and services and businesses out there that just aren’t getting in front of their audience and that’s the job of marketing. If you think about what you’d be in the zombie apocalypse, say there were no jobs and there’s no internet and there’s no computer, what would your role be?
I think I’d be a problem solver. That’s the main thing that I do - what have we got and where are we and what can we do with it? I’m really driven to help businesses connect with their ideal audience and grow. If you can’t get in front of your ideal audience - the people that you serve - then they’re missing out on the thing that you do and the solution that you provide.
What’s your view on how good small businesses are at marketing? I think a lot of small businesses are set up by people who are very good at what they do, they’re a “technician”. They’ve worked in a company and they’ve probably done very well working for somebody else where there are other departments who are doing the accounts, the sales and everything else. I think there’s an awful lot of small businesses that get set up by people who are very good at the technical elements, but maybe not great understanding exactly why what they do is valuable.
To do marketing well you need to understand the value that you provide and now more than ever it’s important to recognise what that is because people are having to change how they demonstrate that value and how they share that value. Things will continue to change in different ways and people need to be adaptable so the better they understand the value that they provide to their customers, then they’ll know how to provide that in a different way.
Understanding of the value impacts their content, their marketing strategy, how they interact, how they deliver the service, how they follow-up service and so on. I love talking about personas and avatars and really getting into the psychology of somebody’s audience. Where really good quality marketing comes from is understanding what’s going on in your client’s head.
There seems to be a fear for smaller businesses to pick a target audience. What’s your view on that? It’s a fear that you’re leaving money on the table. With targeting, what you are doing is welcoming particular people that you know that you can serve really well and benefit from your service. With personas, you’re really getting into somebody’s head by saying: Why are they looking for you? What problem do you solve? What do they want at the end of it? Then being able to say directly, yes, this thing that you’re looking for, we can do. At the end of the day, if you don’t go through the exercise then you’re just making your clients or your potential clients work harder to figure out whether your service or product is exactly what they need. Targeting just makes life easier for your ideal customers to find out that you’re what they’re looking for, almost like a matchmaking.
So who supports you in business? I think the BusComm community has made a big difference to me, definitely. I have found that experience of moving from being employed to being the boss something that I probably couldn’t have prepared for fully or really understood. I think I’ve got a lot more respect or understanding of really what it takes to run a company. There’s the responsibility - the buck stopping with you - but also the highs and lows. I feel like the pendulum swings so much further in different directions. The highs and the lows are much greater and often in the same day!
I’ve been very lucky that Helen was an active part for a long time and really helped me get used to where things were and I really relied on her quite heavily. Being around positive people, that’s made a really big difference. I’ve also got a coach. That also makes a really big difference, knowing that I’ve got that person that I check in with on a regular basis.
I think working within a company, you get used to the job being this task list of stuff that you do for other people, but in order to drive your business forward, those tasks are very different. They might not seem like billable work, but it’s the work that improves the value of the company in the long term. That shift can be quite a difficult one to make if you’ve spent your entire career being used to doing the work for the people.
What would you say makes you different from your competitors? I think we are full service. It really helps me because I’ve got no incentive to try and sell one service over the other. I’m not trying to sell websites as a solution when it’s not right for the business and that can be great for me. We really get to understand the business objectives and align any marketing with that. We’re very thorough in that initial research phase, making sure that we understand what role the marketing is supposed to play. Understanding the audience is a key part of that persona development and psychology, and that then helps getting the message right. I’d say that’s really our differences. We’ve been very thorough in understanding the marketing goals and the audience before moving forward with a marketing plan and a messaging.
If you were to give one top tip for a small business, what would that be? Don’t try and do it alone. Nobody has all of the answers. Even some of the most successful business people in the world still continue to have mentors and groups of business friends who they lean on. Nobody knows it all. Definitely don’t try and do it alone!
Watch the interview
This is an edited version of the video interview – for the full version and even more insights into Jessica, visit here: https://youtu.be/jMhRKGnk1Ro.
