Guest Blog: Rachel Watts, Global Marketing Director, Harvey Nash
I’m delighted to be taking over the CEO blog this week. I joined Harvey Nash just over two months ago as Global Marketing Director for Harvey Nash and Spinks, and have been spending my time learning the businesses, and together with my Harvey Nash and Spinks marketing colleagues around the globe, discussing how we support and accelerate each brands’ growth plans in the coming weeks, months and years.
I’ve worked in marketing for over 20 years and reflecting on this milestone got me thinking about how marketing has evolved during that time. Here’s some interesting facts for you.
Huge opportunities and some challenges
When I started out LinkedIn only had 1 million followers and Friends Reunited (look it up) was more popular than Facebook! My first marketing job involved fax campaigns (you may need to Google that too) – that’s right, sending a marketing campaign to target customers by fax.
Marketing has evolved significantly since then and thankfully we are much more environmentally conscious when it comes to how we engage with our audiences.
Nowadays our routes to market are varied and continue to increase, which presents businesses like Harvey Nash and Spinks with huge opportunities and some challenges. So how do we do it? How do we continue to grow?
Well, have you every stopped to consider your own buying habits? Why are you drawn to certain products over others? For me, this all comes down to marketing and more specifically to brand and brand positioning.
Marketing is a science
Marketing is a science, based on understanding our customers’ and candidates’ needs, having a great product or service and our ability to effectively communicate how that product or service answers these needs – basically how their lives will be made easier. This boils down to creating a brand that people trust. And that’s exactly what I see in the Nash Squared brands.
In the short time I’ve been here, it’s clear that we have amazing brands. This manifests itself in many ways: our ability to attract the best talent to work with us, to engage with candidates and of course our client base, which is without doubt the envy of our competition.
The trust our clients place in our brands
Focusing on the latter, the trust our clients place in our brands is clear by the number of years many have worked with us – seeing us as trusted talent partners, experts in our field who enable their growth.
However, while lots goes into creating a strong brand, in our world, a fundamental component of its success is people as ultimately, it is you who help us to bring our brands to life every day.
It’s not often you get to join a company where the brands are already so well established and so well respected. It makes marketing so much easier, and I’m so excited by the ‘limitless’ possibilities we have to take the brands to even higher levels.
Rachel