John Callagy works as a Marketing & Communications Offer in the Marketing team. Here he writes about what a typical day looks like for him – if there is such a thing!
“No two days are the same at The Data Lab”. A phrase that was uttered to me at the start of my journey with TDL and one which has proven time and time again to be factual. Being a member of any team at TDL does not mean all your work will be focused within that team, or within that overall pillar. Throughout the year, various aspects of TDL initiatives will take centre stage, and given how small the TDL team is, it’s always a case of all hands on deck.
This is true of the marketing team in particular. As we operate as the outward facing voice for all of the services, we need to be able to understand the details of each service, what is happening and coming up, and how one service can interact with another in our communications to maximise impact but equally support the voice of each individual service. With that in mind, what does a day in the life look like in the marketing team? Read on to find out.
A typical day can be split into work around two categories – internal and external. Internal work consists of meeting with other TDL teams, updating them on results of any current campaigns, listening to upcoming activity and working with them to figure out what the best port of call with marketing actions might be. Each service at TDL has its own unique needs, audience, and stakeholders, and thus each will need custom marketing to hit the right demographics. There is no one size fits all approach so understanding each service is of paramount importance. Once you know what’s coming up from each service it’s time to add it to the marketing calendar and ensure each service gets its own time with the spotlight pointing to it. Prepping the content that will be used tends to be the usual next step. Pulling together blogs, podcasts, and videos are all in a day’s work. These conversations are about listening to others and then giving them feedback on what you think might work. Collaboration is essential.
TDL’s mission statement is to help Scotland maximise value from data and lead the world to a data powered future. The whole purpose of TDL is to help others, and this isn’t possible if you operate in a bubble. As this blog series progresses it will be evident that the vast amount of a working day in TDL is spent communicating with other people and companies. This fits into the external work I mentioned previously. Although we do not tend to strike up conversations around new projects, external funding bids, or skills collaborations, we do strike up conversations with Scottish trailblazing companies around how we can come together and market Scotland to the world. For examples of this work see our YouTube channel and a little thing called DataFest! We often tend to act as a project manager of sorts, bringing together various stakeholders to create content that we use to do two things – market the services available from TDL by showing examples of previous engagements and showcase Scotland to the world.
So what does a typical day look like as part of TDLs marketing team? You jump between calls, content creation and planning for the future. Knowledge is your best friend and you try to soak up as much as you can. When events weren’t virtual (remember those?) a key part of every week was exhibiting and meeting with new people and introducing them to TDL, alongside pulling together and managing, and even hosting our own events. Of course, this still happens but now we do it from the comfort of our own home now!
Interested in joining our team? We currently have a role open but it’s closing on the 4th of August so be quick!