Digital Marketing Apprentice Shares His First Year At CFD
Posted on 12th July 2023 at 10:40
Read Time: Approx. 4 Minutes 50 Seconds
Author: Lewis Stretton
Wow, I can’t believe it has already been 1 year at Customer First Digital … It amazes me how quick this first year has gone. Since the first day to now, 365 days later, there has not been a day that I haven’t learnt something new. Whether this would be through the CFD team, our partners or at college. The best thing is that everyone has helped me every step of the way to achieve all this in my first year of Digital Marketing.
What work I have done?
Within this one year at CFD, I have done so much fun, interesting work to improve my knowledge of the Digital Marketing World. The best thing is that every day is a different day in the world of digital … Apart from Mondays, that is reporting day!
I’ll start with all the friendly and kind people I have met over the last year. Whether this is going to Face the Future and Green Ginger Digital working alongside them, gaining their expertise or attending my first event, The Affiliate Huddle, where I spoke to many people, listened to talks, and even wrote one of my first blogs about the whole day! I’ve also met our clients Face to Face in my first ever client meeting with Decree Skincare. At Hull college I’ve talked to many new apprentices like me, to learn what they get up to at their workplace. Finally, the CFD team, I have learnt a lot from them, they have welcomed me and have been amazing in teaching me everything I need to know.
I have also taken on more responsibilities since my 6-month blog. I help manage our socials by producing ideas and posting them to our social platforms, this has contributed to the 31% growth of followers we have seen across our platforms this year. I’ve supported with our monthly newsletter, ‘The Digital Revolution’ and I have just created our new affiliate email campaign ‘The Affiliate Insider’. I have been doing changes to our site, improving, and adding pages for visitors to see. I have also created, from start to finish, a Meet the Team page that is live on our site. Additionally, I have become a thought leader, creating many blogs, that have been published onto our site.
What have I learnt in my first half year ...
Where do I even start … I have learnt so much since I’ve started at CFD. Suzanne has supported me with everything to do with affiliate marketing. Firstly, starting off with how affiliate marketing works, swiftly moving on to how to use affiliate marketing platforms like Rakuten Advertising and Awin. Over the last 6 months I have even helped do more of the day-to-day work with one of our affiliate partners Decree, by attending and contributing to weekly calls, contacting publishers daily and so much more. The icing on the cake was becoming Rakuten Certified along with Suzanne and Dave, enabling the agency to become a preferred agency.
Dave has guided me into the world of Digital Marketing. He has introduced me to many marketing tools we use for our clients like Google Ads and Shopify, but also for our ourselves like HubSpot, where I have continued to support and carry on our monthly Digital Revolution, and Affiliate Insider email. Dave also introduced me to many of our partners and showed me how I can help support them by setting me tasks, such as a charity collaboration and paid search performance reports!
It doesn’t stop there. There are many things I have learnt that don’t include college or any one from the team at CFD. But myself. I have done many research tasks, big and small. I have researched on whether we should be using Pinterest for one of our clients, where I guided Dave into decisions made for one of our partners. I also carried out a self-lead project over a whole month in finding out which social media scheduling platform is the best for our company. Which resulted in us moving to Buffer as our go to Social posting platform.
Finally, I have passed numerous exams, from Universal Analytics to Google Analytics (GA4) certifications. I’ve managed to pass all 3 exams at Hull College this year …
Principles of Online and Offline Marketing
Principles of Coding
Principles of Business Marketing
There are also many other exams the team have completed this year. Some of them are the Preferred Agency Partner with Rakuten Advertising, and even on a deeper level with publishers like Salesfire Academy.
Proudest moment so far ...
I have had so many proud and exciting moments within in my first year of working at Customer First Digital. To keep within a reasonable length, I have reduced it to just 3 …
1. Seeing the CFD team win so many awards within the 1st year of me being here. Not only does it show all the hard work we have all put in, but also a moment to celebrate and enjoy
2. Passing all 3 exams at Hull College. This is because I had spent time and worked very hard to make sure I passed these exams. It is extremely rewarding to see all the hard work pay off and the team proud of you for passing the exam
3. Finally, creating and presenting my first lunch and learn. This is because I presented for over an hour about all thing’s social media. As I have been managing the social media over the last year, it was great to present back to the team, what we have achieved and what I have helped to create. Oh, and how could I forget the lunch from the food van next door!
Outside of work ...
There have been many events that I have partaken in with the CFD team. It started with the charity footgolf event, with Green Ginger Digital … Although we didn’t win, it was an overall fun day. Moving from Footgolf to golf, where Dave and I travelled to our local driving range, practicing our swing. I also attended The Flight Club with our partners, Face the Future, where Dave and I represented team CFD and both of us finished in the Top 3. Our knowledge got put to the test, when we managed to escape the Yorkshire Express escape room, with under 1 minute to go. Finally, the multiple meals out I have enjoyed throughout the year.
The Future ...
It has been a very busy and exciting first year of working at Customer First Digital and I can’t wait for the next one. I should be moving on to the next part of college, where I will be starting my portfolio and synoptic project. I’m looking forward to continuing to work with our partners and seeing them grow. Ultimately, I am looking forward to continuing to work with such a great team!
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