Callum Hull
Hello and welcome back to another episode of the 120 Second Recruitment Podcast I’m joined today by Jo Lee of Marmalade Marketing and Jo your first question is “what is the biggest challenge you’re currently facing in your specific role and how are you planning on overcoming it”?
Jo Lee
Thank you for having me on your podcast Callum so I’d say that the hardest thing is scaling a business. Marmalade’s been going for four and a half years and I’ve been in marketing for 20 years so I’ve learned such a lot over that duration of time.
The pandemic hit everyone like a steam train and some of the issues and challenges that we anticipated we would have as a lean business and very niche within the recruitment and tech space we didn’t find we had those problems that we’d anticipated. We have grown during the pandemic. We have more clients and we’re growing in terms of our marketing team and our capabilities. We are growing almost a youth team if you think of Euro 2020 happening at the moment I would say we’re doing the same. We’re growing a youth team of incredibly talented marketing players.
The hardest thing is making sure that we are as efficient and effective as possible in terms of delivery, performance and return on marketing investment. It’s an incredibly complex and strategic offering now.
I think 20 years ago when I first started marketing recruitment businesses it was assumed that it was the colouring-in department or if a bid needed to look good it would go to the marketing function. Now it’s much more sophisticated. It’s on the board agenda and the data speaks for itself. So I think the numbers and analytics have given marketing a place and a voice which has been fantastic. But the biggest challenge is scaling not necessarily trading during the storm of this pandemic but scaling up and out of it as efficiently as possible.
Callum Hull
Okay, that’s brilliant thank you so much for telling us about scaling up and out and a nice reference to the euros as well very nice. This leads us on to your second question “what is one common myth about a profession that you would like to debunk”?
Jo Lee
So I’d like to debunk the fact that the perception of marketing is seen as a silver bullet. That we have the answers and we can deliver a return on marketing investment immediately and that any challenges or obstacles that the business had experienced can be overcome by finally deciding to invest in a marketing solution. That may be any growing internal team or outsourcing like lots of our clients due to marmalade.
So I’d like to debunk that it isn’t a silver bullet and it’s a commitment on both sides. It’s a huge investment on both sides; monetary, IT, experience, knowledge sharing and confidence-building and each party can trust each other that you know the end goal is going to be achieved but it takes a bit of time to get there.
Callum Hull
That is something that definitely resonates with me and as a marketer. I definitely agree with what you’ve just said and it’s nice to hear someone like you say what I’ve been thinking. So thank you so much Jo for coming on you’ve been a fantastic guest on the podcast!
Jo Lee – You’re very welcome thanks for having me!
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