As if planning for a wedding and having a new daughter weren’t
enough, yet another big thing has happened in my life.After 2 & ½ years I finally left Summit
Media to pursue a change in career; a change I had been considering for nearly
2 years.I have now become a Copywriter
for Victoria Plumb, a Bathroom Supplier based in Hull.
I have to say I really enjoyed my time at Summit and learnt
a hell of a lot about digital marketing and also learnt quite a bit about
myself.It was during my first few
months, when I was full of self-doubt about my new role, that I started
considering copywriting.I had received
a lot of positive feedback on my writing when working at Gala Coral and even at
UKTV and it felt like an area I wanted to explore some more.I had always had a bit of a flair for turning
a catchy headline or thinking up a pun or two, so combining this with my
experience in marketing made content writing a logical step.
Despite many a former Teacher taking umbrage with my “vivid
imagination” and a general lack of enthusiasm about English as a subject at
school, my interest in writing really grew throughout my marketing career.Whether it was writing a customer letter when
I was working on Werther’s Original, a piece of sponsorship copy for UKTV
History or even an advertorial with betting highlights for Coral, writing
really gave me a bit of a buzz.However
my career path seemed to be heading in another direction.Despite a brief spell as a Search Engine
Copywriter for Coral (in which I virtually wrote no copy), my main day to day
role became increasingly focused on Pay per Click (PPC) & Display
Advertising, until I finally became Online Advertising Manager.Whilst online advertising mainly deals with
numbers, I was still hugely interested in words, but the experience and insight
I was gaining, whilst not always pleasurable, was invaluable.
I only ever viewed my move to Summit as a short term
change.As I was to move to agency-side
marketing, which would entail learning lots of new skills, I thought I could
use these new experiences to move on again.As it was, life at the coal face was difficult at first – I would
literally wake up in the middle of the night dreaming of excel
spreadsheets.For the first few months I
found it hard to switch off from work.There was so much to do, so much to learn and so much pressure.However, like everything I learned to cope
and managed to separate work from personal life.In my mind, once I was home I switched off
from work.That’s not to say there weren’t
times I worked at home on an evening – but on the whole, I wasn’t always
thinking about work or worrying.
I eventually took on a new role at Summit as Shopping
Comparison Manager.This was a brand new
role, which meant becoming an expert in my field and knowing everything there
was to know about Shopping Comparison.Again, I was happy in this role and it provided me with some valuable
experience and insight.I worked with
some fantastic clients, such as Argos, Homebase and Burton Menswear and I got
to spearhead some very important projects.I even had to give company-wide training sessions; something I had never
done before.Whilst working on product
feeds, I touched upon copywriting again, but this time writing or editing product
titles and descriptions.Words again
became my favoured medium – not numbers.
And so the opportunity at Victoria Plumb arrived.As I didn’t have a pure copywriting
background, I had to work hard to really prove myself.Recruiters talk about “selling yourself” in
interviews.I have never sold myself as
I did in that set of interviews.I
wanted to show that I am a good writer and have plenty of passion for writing.It seemed to do the trick!