November 27, 2015, by Laura Estrop
A Digital Wonderland
By Johanna Taylor, Management MSc student
Johanna recently spent an evening at Impression, a digital marketing agency; to find out about careers in this popular sector.
I arrived at the Impression offices with high hopes of a trendy, relaxed environment and I was not disappointed. There was a palpable sense of a balance of work and play, as you walk in as the first thing you see is a modern conference room with glass walls and a huge TV closely followed by sofas, a ping pong table and a fridge stocked full of drinks including beer. It’s easy to see that this is a space that is conducive to the collaborative style of work that Impression boasts with an open plan office that everyone sits in together. And it can’t hurt that the offices are right in the centre of Nottingham near the bohemian cafes, bars and shops as well.
We were greeted by a friendly and noticeably young group of staff who gave us a chance to sit and chat with our drink of choice. Not like the usual networking events that you can sometimes find yourself at, this was a relaxed and comfortable affair.
The art of search engine optimisation (SEO)
The presentations were kicked off by Laura, Digital Marketing Manager, who explained what the acronym SEO actually means. It is the process of working with a client to make their website the best it can be in order to make it appear as high as possible on Google searches. She spoke of the algorithms that Google use and how they use this information to help their clients get better results and promote their brand effectively. She concluded with “SEO is a creative science.” An interesting thought which, I think, makes this work attractive to those of us that are creative people but still need structure.
It’s all about relationships, contacts and storytelling
Next up was Rob, Digital PR Manager and he was joined by Lauren, Digital PR Executive, to make an energetic double act that talked to us about digital PR and what they do. The presentation linked smoothly with Laura’s previous one with an introduction that explained how SEO and digital PR are getting closer all the time. We were told that their job involves relationship building, making contacts and storytelling. They are constantly thinking up new and creative ways to tell a client’s story using different modes and mediums including traditional print, online articles, videos, blogs and events. All in all, it sounds like lots of fun but I’m sure it’s hard work too…
Convince, convert and entertain
Speaking of hard work, this is when it starts getting more complicated with a presentation from Aaron, Managing Director, about pay-per-click (PPC). For those of you that don’t know what this is, it’s a form of data mining that uses your online activity to tailor the adverts you see to items that you’re more likely to want. For example, you’ve probably noticed the adverts along the side of your Facebook page are always spookily relevant to your interests. That’s because PPC has been used to target you as a potential customer. The overall intention is to ‘convince, convert and entertain’.
It was now turn for Tom, Director, to take the stage and speak about content marketing; this involves the design and creation of eye-catching and innovative content for their clients’ websites. Here’s a fun example of what I’m trying to say.
Finally, we were given some very useful and practical tips on how to become more employable to companies in the digital world with a plethora of links and suggested skills to develop such as the Google Analytics Academy. That’s something I know I’ll be looking into! All in all, the Impression insight event was fun and informative with an interesting look into a local small to medium-sized enterprise (SME). Well worth it!
Want to find out more about insight days? Read our blog. Who would you like to go on an insight day with? My choice would be Pixar, but let us know your choice in the comments below!
Featured image: TopRank Online Marketing: Online marketing blog wordle
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