A candidate day in the life of a Marketing Assistant

My Background

I studied Biochemistry at the University of York and graduated in the Summer of 2017. After taking some time off to travel, I decided to try a completely new field. At the time, Marketing was an area that I had heard of, but never worked in. I had some volunteering experience in the Communications team of Pint of Science, but that was the closest I’d come.

Inspiring Interns found my CV and helped me secure a role with Vision Direct as a Marketing Assistant. As part of my role, I am involved with a variety of areas within Marketing – but mainly I work with the Senior Marketing Manager, Emma, to deliver email campaigns both for existing customers and prospects.

Typical Day

9am

I arrive into the office, make a coffee and have a snack from the office fruit bowl. Then I check my emails for any important issues I need to resolve.

10am

We have a Marketing stand up meeting with the whole team. This is a good opportunity to list my top three priorities for the week and highlight the most pressing tasks.

10.30am

I use Dotmailer to build the various email campaigns for all of the Vision Direct markets across Europe and the US. I also use this time to review the success of previous campaigns using tools such as Google Analytics.

1pm: LUNCH

When the company is not tempting us with free pizza, I usually head out for lunch with some of my colleagues. Working near Camden and Kings Cross means there is delicious food; we are spoilt for choice.

2pm

My manager and I have monthly meetings with an email consultant to discuss which email campaigns worked the best and develop our current process.

4pm

I also get to work on other projects as part of my role – for example  I recently organised a work trip for the entire Marketing team to travel to Brighton and have our team building day. This has given me the opportunity to develop new skills, such as; project management, internal communications and logistics.

5.15pm

Just before the end of the day I make a prioritised list of my tasks for the following day.

5.30pm

I usually head home at this time, although we do occasionally head to the pub for after-work drinks on a Friday.

Working at Vision Direct has definitely given me the opportunity to develop new skills and learn first hand about Marketing. I’ve also learned to adapt to fast-paced working environments. At busy periods, we may have additional campaigns that need to go out urgently – so that can be challenging. However, I find it very rewarding when all the work is done.

Over the past 8 months I have learnt a lot about e-commerce, the diversity of roles in marketing and GDPR! There have been lots of opportunities to develop new skills. I’ve already attended several marketing events and had the opportunity for training. I initially thought that I may have struggled coming from a different field, however Marketing is very accessible with plenty of scope to move into lots of different areas!

Check out our marketing roles here. For more information on marketing, see our blog posts on what is digital marketing, and what is social media marketing.