Raffingers Marketing – The Big Idea
For those who do not know me or have never read any of my articles, let me start with a brief introduction.
Hi, I'm Ashlee, and if you recognise my name, it’s most likely from being the host of the Beyond the Balance Sheet podcast, through heading up the marketing department here at Raffingers, or, through attending one of our webinars, Facebook live events or in-person events. If you recognise my name and it is not from one of those places, it may be because you’ve heard me winning prizes on the radio, I LOVE entering competitions and have a good record of accomplishment.
Assuming you do not know me and have never heard of me, which is likely, then you should know that I have over 10 years of experience in marketing for both start-ups and global brands across a wide range of sectors. My obsession with finding ways to connect with different target markets stemmed from two places:
- I am obsessed with people. I love figuring out what motivates them, what scares them, their hopes and aspirations and it is why I spend so much time talking to people about their stories.
- I am Right-Brained, which means I am emotional, creative, have a vivid imagination, and enjoy storytelling, however, my Dyslexia made me determined to work tirelessly on my Left-Brain, meaning I have honed the personality traits and skills that did not come as naturally to me, such as analytical thinking, copywriting, maths and time management.
I always knew I wanted to go to university, more so for character building and life skills than anything else, and given everything that drives me, marketing just seemed like the perfect blend of everything I am interested in, and combined the two sides of my brain quite nicely.
Now, you might be wondering why I am giving you so much background, but I am a big believer that every part of your journey is what leads you to where you are today. And, as a self-confessed storyteller, it would not be right to start at the present without referencing the past.
I decided to study for a marketing degree at Nottingham Trent University. Soon after graduation, I landed what I thought was my dream graduate role as a Fashion Buyer for a well-known jewelry brand however, I quit after 2 weeks because the position lacked human connection, and even by looking at senior members of staff, I know it would never fuel me, as there were no opportunities to truly make an impact on people's lives.
Soon after, I landed my first marketing position for an FMCG start-up brand. I was one of the first marketing hires and helped to build the brand into the fastest-growing company in the UK in its category.
Fast forward to 2019, and I found myself being interviewed by two Accountants, Andrew Coney and Lee Manning, who were looking for a marketing specialist to transform the Raffingers brand and challenge the perceptions of the accounting industry. For the first year working at Raffingers, I spent a lot of time sitting in on client meetings, understanding our customer's challenges and motivations, and building a picture of how we could best serve our clients so that we can truly make an impact on their lives, and therefore be fulfilled in our own.
When sitting in these meetings, I simply listened and noted that what came up, time and time again when diving into our client's problems, was that they always struggled to drive up revenue for their businesses and, due to inefficient or non-existing marketing strategies, they struggled to generate leads or see a financial return from their marketing efforts.
Now, the accountancy world tells clients all the time that “building a successful business is all about understanding your numbers.” How many sales do you need to turn a profit or how many people do you need to hire to cover the workload? Clients can’t afford to get these things wrong because they know that the success or failure of their business depends on getting the numbers right.
And my left-brain thought to itself, “The same goes for marketing, that is... if they want it to be effective.”
Introducing Raffingers Marketing.
An idea born out of frustration from seeing our clients and other UK SME’s wasting time, money, and efforts on marketing initiatives that do not give them a return on their investments. Our mission is to combine the commercial financial advice clients receive from Raffingers, with the creative insight from our marketing experts, to ensure all marketing initiatives ladder up to the bigger business purposes and generate a significant return.
Sounds good, right? Well on paper the idea seemed so simple, offer marketing services to clients...easy, done. However, what I then realised was that I was about to embark on a start-up business journey of my own, from pitching the idea to the Partners here at Raffingers to working with them on everything from set-up, forecasting, and operations, and ensuring that I have a kick-ass strategy to market the business - there was a lot of work that needed to be done.
Lucky for you, I'm speaking in real-time right now, and I'm going to take you on this start-up journey with me, sharing the challenges, wins, frustrations, and learnings I have along the way.
Stay tuned! It’ll surely be an interesting ride.
Ashlee