Simon Marsh BA MSc F IDM

As well as doing all of these, pursue your interests and build your skillset. Do not spend every waking moment looking for work, get out, get active and take the chance and the time to enjoy some downtime. When it happened to me - and it happens more than you realise I added a new portfolio of digital skills, got fitter and re-discovered reading, photography and cycling.

Develop a range of "personas" that reflect your various audience groups. Their buying behaviours, level of knowledge, location, brands they buy, brands they don't, online behaviour, offline behaviour and how you can address each effectively.

Whilst you may be writing for e-commerce key here are the objectives you want to achieve. How is your business positioned? Are you looking to engage and increase the length of time customers stay on the page, engage quickly by providing key information and drive traffic to purchase / registration, add value and open discussion or simply to advise. Text can be written in different ways, focussed to include key SEO references, include cues to look at other helpful articles, related products and other authors. Personas are often overlooked but understanding the profile of your customer base can not be over estimated. There may be 7-10 distinct profiles based around level of knowledge, perceptions and reasons for interest / purchase.

All depends where you are. Use to be that the CIM was the way to get started with Certificate & Diploma. But with the fragmentation and specialisation within Marketing this has changed although The Institute of Direct & Digital Marketing is still a good place to start. With platform algorithms changing all the time and the skillsets also changing short term, dedicated courses, networking and online are the way to go once you have built a solid foundation.

Your process will help but it assumes that sales operates in a vacuum whereas in reality there is much to be considered in terms of product development, customer feedback, lapsed and lost customers, process performance and marketing. What are the customer problems that your product addresses? How effective is it? Who else is in the market? How well are you communicating an adding value? Anyone can sell something once but maintaining great customer relationships, developing products that address a real customer / market need and adding value at every opportunity is the job of the business as a whole.

I began as a commercial graduate at Land Rover where I got a fantastic grounding in brand, sales, promotion and manufacturing. Working in sales then marketing I worked to get the CIM Diploma which I Iater developed into an MSc. Lucky enough to support this with a great deal of travel and I got to work with some great people before broadening my experience across four other sectors - which is very unusual these days. I have worked client side and agency side and covered all aspects of marketing. I have managed teams but now do all the digital aspects. What do you need - people who help and support, the headroom to develop and the drive to make it happen.