In this episode of the Strategy & Creative Podcast, I chat with Katie Skelton, a seasoned email marketing consultant and trainer who has found her niche in helping businesses nurture relationships and drive sales through effective email strategies.

With a background in the media industry and a passion for writing, Katie describes her journey from copywriter to email marketing expert, highlighting the moments that led her to discover her true calling. She opens up about the challenges of self-doubt and the importance of investing in oneself to accelerate growth and attract clients.

Throughout the episode, Katie emphasizes the importance of consistency, commitment, and showing up for your audience. Her insights on personal branding and the role of human connection in email marketing serve as valuable reminders that people buy from people, not faceless companies.

Whether you're a seasoned marketer or just starting out, Katie's journey and expertise will make you think differently and challenge some of the assumptions you’ve made about email. Katie is proof that with the right mindset anyone can make email a core channel.

Key Takeaways:

• Daily emails can increase subscriber engagement, trust, and sales, despite initial concerns about unsubscribes
• Personal branding is crucial for creating authentic, human-like email communication that resonates with audiences
• Investing in yourself and seeking guidance from experienced professionals can help overcome self-doubt and accelerate growth
• Consistency, commitment, and showing up for your audience are essential for building relationships and attracting clients
• Email marketing is a powerful tool for nurturing one-to-one relationships and driving business growth when done strategically

Follow Katie on LinkedIn for daily updates.

In this episode of the Strategy & Creative Podcast, host Daniel Plume sits down with the Brand Weaver, AKA Tim Weaver. A branding specialist who has delivered rebrands for industries as diverse as local beer breweries to independent schools.

In the show Tim shares his experience and journey to brand strategy via stints as creative director and lead designer across huge global accounts. We tap into Tim’s expertise and discover key strategies to help you differentiate your brand in competitive landscapes.

Here’s what you’ll learn:

• Transformative Brewery Rebranding: Discover how Tim helped a local brewery redefine its visual identity, harnessing nostalgia, local heritage, and British essence to expand beyond its regional market, leading to early success and remarkable growth.
• Strategic Storytelling: Learn how Tim captures local history, landscapes and stories to transform bottle labels and website graphics into an engaging journey that resonates with consumers across physical and digital environments.
• Balancing the Alchemy Triangle: Tim explains the necessity of balancing business strengths, consumer needs, and competitive analysis to create a differentiated and engaging brand strategy that drives growth.
• Personal Evolution in Branding: Tim shares his career journey from band member to creative director to independent brand strategist, and how following his passion led to establishing his own agency, the Brand Weaver Agency.
• Real-World Examples & Insights: Delve into Tim’s work with diverse clientele, including prestigious independent schools and barbecue and tattoo brands, revealing the power of authentic brand articulation and overcoming resistance to change.

Find Tim on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/thebrandweaver/

The Brand Weaver website: https://thebrandweaver.co.uk/

Explore Vale Brewery case study: https://thebrandweaver.co.uk/vale-brewery

Vale Brewery Website: https://valebrewery.co.uk/

Follow Dan on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/daniel-plume-content-strategy-marketing/

In this Strategy & Creative Podcast episode, I interview Helena Traill, an acolyte and proponent of creative co-design and the founder of the growing creative design agency Nooh Studio.

In the show Helena shares her unique journey from art school to agency owner - bucking the trend of seeking creative employment at some large enterprise - and how her vision for collaborative design is the foundation for the agency's meaningful work for clients and its growth.

This episode is awash with valuable lessons and a fair few personal anecdotes that will resonate with anyone interested in strategy, growth, positioning, and the stories behind successful ventures.

What you'll hear in this episode:

• Reaching potential through Co-Design: Helena lays out the impactful process of co-design with clients, citing design sprints and stakeholder collaboration as key elements. She provides a real-life case study of working with young individuals on a brand project, demonstrating the iterative nature of co-design and how everyone gets involved.
• The journey to Nooh Studio: Helena narrates her path from a graphic designer working on a personally meaningful book to founding Nooh Studio, an agency focused on collaborative design and storytelling. Learn how a childhood comfort blanket named "Nunu" inspired the agency’s name and branding.
• Efficiency of co-design in healthcare: Helena discusses her work on a healthcare design consultancy with the NHS, emphasizing how co-design leads to more efficient and clear decision-making processes in healthcare storytelling.
• Challenges and triumphs: Helena opens up about the challenges she faced, including working with ADHD and using a team of virtual assistants. She also reflects on the critical advice that helped her succeed in sales and networking.
• Engaging personal content: Despite her preference for detailed storytelling on LinkedIn, Helena's personal video updates have proven to be effective in growing her audience.

This episode is a must-listen for creative minds seeking to leverage co-design for impactful change or exploring new ways to deliver distinctive content and visual work.

Follow Helena on LinkedIn here: https://www.linkedin.com/in/helenatraill/

Check out Nooh Studio’s website: https://noohstudio.com/

Claire is Founder and MD of Chime, an agency for agencies. She is on a mission to solve the challenge all agencies face – their own marketing. With 15 years’ experience spanning boutique independents and global networked agencies, Claire has a passion for content, bridging strategy and delivery seamlessly bringing her extensive industry knowledge to all of Chime Agency’s clients. Claire and Chime have won several awards for their work including 2023 Rising Star in the UK Start-Up Awards and Best New Business in the 2022 Women’s Business Awards.

In this episode, Daniel sits down with Claire to discuss the recent launch of the second edition of its Agency Benchmarking Report - a piece of brilliant primary research exploring how agencies are doing when it comes to practicing what they preach. Hit play to dive into a conversation brimming with insights on strategic positioning, growth, and the transformative power of personal and professional resilience. With 20 years of friendship fueling their dialogue, this episode is a heartfelt blend of expert advice and inspiring success stories.

In this episode, hear about:

• Navigating redundancy to success: Claire shares her journey of being made redundant twice, including during maternity leave amid the Covid pandemic, and how these challenges led to unexpected growth opportunities and the founding of Chime.
• Market research mastery: Discover the sophisticated research Claire conducted comparing UK and US agencies, how she surveyed 200 agencies, and identified critical differences and opportunities for UK agencies to scale into the US market.
• From Freelance to Agency: Claire outlines the strategic steps she took to transform her freelance consulting practice into a thriving agency, including hiring key team members and the influence of her husband's MS diagnosis on her decision to scale the business.
• Practical competitive insight: Learn how Claire developed a robust competitor analysis framework that not only differentiates her agency but has also become a core strategy for client success.
• Future opportunities and expansion plans: Get a sneak peek into Claire’s future plans, including targeted US-specific content, email nurture campaigns, and speaking engagements in New York, to further establish her agency’s presence in the American market.

Tune in to hear Claire Hutchings’ thought-provoking journey of resilience, strategic acumen, and the art of positioning to stand out in a crowded agency market.

Follow and connect with Claire on LinkedIn.

Check out Chime Agency.

Download the Agency Benchmarking Report.

Connect with Daniel on LinkedIn.

Brought to you by: https://plumecontent.limited

In this Strategy & Creative Podcast episode, I sit down with the multi-talented Odessa Sherreard for an open and honest discussion about LinkedIn for personal and professional growth. As one of the first contacts I made when I branched out on my own, Odessa has become one of my closest friends, her journey through various career roles and her strategic approach to social media is a treasure trove of actionable insights that I steal from all the time.

This conversation contains real-world experiences and strategic advice on balancing social engagement while maintaining high-quality content. Whether you’re looking to build your brand, understand social media engagement, or find your community online, you must listen to this episode (and Odessa). Don’t miss out on Odessa's wisdom, experience, and hard-hitting advice distilled into practical tips you can start using today.

• Kickstarting on LinkedIn: Odessa shares her strategy for building a personal brand from scratch, emphasising authenticity and valuable content.
• Understanding Social Media Algorithms: Discover the misconceptions about instant social media success and the realities of working with algorithms.
• Effective Content Strategies: Insights into creating engaging and meaningful content that resonates with your audience without getting lost in analytics.
• Networking and Community Building: Learn the value of real-world interactions and networking events in growing your online presence.
• Client Success Stories: Odessa shares how she supports her clients in aligning their social media goals with their broader business objectives.
• Creative Problem Solving: The power of "Power Hours" for overcoming creative blocks and finding a renewed approach to content creation.

Find Odessa on LinkedIn.

A wide-ranging look at the trials and tribulations of building a successful business when you work for yourself. Ben is the operational mind to the creative flair at copywriting agency, Copy or Die, a window cleaning magnate, soon to be father of 3 and the other half of Barfield & McKinney.

When we spoke a few weeks back, we talked about how the partnership with Dave Harland came about, where the name of the agency came from, his window cleaning empire, where he finds time to do anything, and a whole lot of other stuff too.

Loved chatting with Ben, and his real life personality is loads better than his online one - its ok, i'm allowed to say this because he says it in the show himself. Promise.

Here's a few of the highlights:

• We chatted about the challenge of defining self-worth in freelancing and how its the first piece of advice anyone gives but its so subjective you still have to figure things out for yourself.
• Ben gave some practical tips on making the most of a perceived skill and leaning into it to gather momentum and get things in flight
• We chatted about how he has turned a passion and a love of networking and copywriting into a flourishing business and how delighted he is about it
• We heard how building Copy or Die on LinkedIn is just the first step in a much grander ambition (watch this space!)
• And he shared how the Barfield & McKinney live shows paved the way for indie business club podcast and were a first step towards building a community

You can find Ben on LinkedIn here:

https://www.linkedin.com/in/benmckinney/

To register as a copywriter for Copy or Die you can do so here:

https://copyordie.co.uk/writers/

And you can catch Barfield & McKinney's indie business club podcast here:

https://barfieldandmckinney.substack.com/

In this intriguing episode, Bret discusses her copywriting and content marketing journey. Her story is an unusual one, as she went from freelancer to in-house leader. During the show, Bret discusses the innovative approaches she is deploying at Hopscotch, a platform designed to boost cash flow management for small businesses.

Whether you're a budding entrepreneur, small business owner, or marketing enthusiast, there's a bunch of great tactical ideas and strategic thinking on show in this episode. From user-generated campaigns to crazy Product Hunt launches and understanding the customer - this is a great show.

- Learn the effective social strategies that resulted in a top-three product of the day award on Product Hunt

- Discover how to create a unique landing page that generates both traffic and customer sign-ups

- Understand the challenges and solutions in targeting the right audience for a niche product, increasing search visibility and community engagement

- Hear how Bret's inspired user-generated content campaign is engaging audiences and surfacing trends and long-term content initiatives

Find out more about Hopscotch: gohopscotch.com

Check out Bret's user-generated content campaign:

https://gohopscotch.com/secretsofsuccess/

https://www.tiktok.com/@secretsofsuccess_hop

https://www.instagram.com/secretsofsuccess_hop

And of course, follow and connect with Bret on LinkedIn:

https://www.linkedin.com/in/bretamandalawrence/

Dive into the ins and outs of running a successful agency, growing an exceptional team, and managing a successful exit. In our first episode, we chat with Chris Bantock, a veteran in agency management and now a community leader for Agency Local - soon to be Agency Adventure.

From his initial start at Hewlett Packard to the triumphant sale of his agency, Chris shares invaluable insights from his time supporting other businesses in their objectives.

You can expect to find out :

• What milestones and factors were involved in the sale of his marketing agency
• Which campaign was Chris's favourite from his 11 years running an agency
• How community has always shaped Chris's career and why its so important today
• Why he is rebranding his current company and the new services on offer

Whether you’re an aspiring creative, a seasoned agency owner, or just interested in the intersection of strategy and creativity, this episode is packed with actionable strategies and advice.

Follow Chris on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/chrisbantock/

Check out Agency Local: https://www.agencylocal.co.uk/