What does an outsourced marketing director do?

I often get asked “So what does an outsourced marketing director actually do?!”

Which I’m guessing is something a lot of marketers, regardless of job title, can probably empathise with!

So, I thought it might be nice to take you behind the scenes at Purple Banana HQ and show you what I get up to.

Granted no two days are the same, but here’s how my Monday panned out this week and what I’m working on at the mo’.

6:32am… No rest for the wicked!

Right on time (as always!) our human alarm clock – aka our five year old boy Jude – bursts into our room and a new day and week begins full of optimism and opportunity.

7:00am… Fancy a dip?

For me, the best way to start the day has to be with a swim in our local lido. Granted, in true great British weather style we’re enjoying a mini heatwave in early September, but call me crazy, I’d still head down there if it was cold and raining. It makes no odds since you’re wet anyways!

Big shout out to my hubby Gareth who gets Jude to school this morning so I can go and enjoy my happy place.

8:30am… Time to look ahead

Before diving into my inbox or my various client ‘to-do’ lists on Trello I like to start by looking at the business goals and priorities I’ve set myself for the new week and month ahead. This way I’m always keeping one eye on the business whilst keeping my clients happy – so everyone is moving in the right direction.

As a business owner myself I know all too well how easy it is to let your own business priorities sink to the bottom of the list, but I make it a priority to dedicate time each week to look after my own business as much as I do my clients.

9:15am… Quick bit of admin

Open said inbox, check Trello to-do lists, and engage brain ready for the jam packed day ahead!

10am… Time to be Marketing Director for my own business!

It’s time for my weekly check-in with my assistant Hannah, who not only supports the delivery of client work, but also takes responsibility for some of our own marketing and sales activities too.

At the moment we’re reviewing Purple Banana’s own marketing strategy and systems to ensure everything’s in good shape – practice what we preach and all that!

During this week’s call we’re looking at the different stages and activities in our nurture funnel and where our dream clients are in their customer journey with us. Off the back of this we spend some time tweaking the configuration and automations within our customer relationship management (CRM) platform Capsule, before evaluating a couple of upcoming networking events that might be worth attending.

I think we could all do with a Hannah in our lives!

Hannah does a sterling job at keeping me accountable to my business and has full permission to challenge and keep me in check even when client delivery ramps up! Having this support is invaluable to ensure our own marketing and growth plans don’t slip.

11am… Let’s talk budgets

It’s 11am and it’s time for my first client meeting of the day.

To give you a bit more context and insight into the nature of this project… this client, a packaging agency that’s been delivering amazing work for major food and beverage brands for over 40 years, came to us 12 months ago as they were fed up with being their industry’s best kept secret and needed help getting their marketing strategy in good order but didn’t know where to start! Knock, knock, “Hello, do you need an outsourced marketing director at all!?”

Roll forwards a year and we’re now in the final throes of their marketing transformation journey and about to relaunch the agency to the world. Eeeeck.

It really has been a wart and all project involving a new value proposition, brand identity, brand story and tone of voice, website, content plan, as well as improving their processes and marketing tech.

You name it, we’ve looked at it!

It’s been one heck of a team effort and the final outputs are looking fantastic.

During the call I’m finalising the marketing budget with the agency’s Sales Director ahead of their new financial year. We’re all about goals and measuring success here at Purple Banana so it’s important to show how the marketing budget relates to the 3-6-9-12 month goals we set out at the beginning of this journey, which will aid that all important internal stakeholder buy-in.

Midday… Mr Bojangles

Time for lunch and to take our 6 year old Cavapoo – Mr Bojangles – out for a stretch. I find the fresh air and change of scenery helps me process thoughts, lets things settle and ferment, and often brings new ideas to light.

How the mind works when you don’t think it is hey.

1:00pm.. Helping a client gain some clarity

Feeling refreshed after some fresh air it’s time for this outsourced marketing director to hop online again and deliver a workshop for another client. This time it’s with the founder of a tech agency who came to us when he was looking to establish a sister-agency to his existing business and needed support in building out the business offering and sales and marketing strategy.

Today’s session is all about gaining clarity on who their dream clients are, the problems their clients have but don’t want, the results they want but don’t have, and the solutions and value our client can deliver.

We use a few different marketing tools to help us do this – picking the best of what is out there today! The session is very interactive and involves a lot of probing from me and a lot of reflection and digging deep from our client!

We end the session with a loooooong exhale breath as we certainly did some deep thinking and I quickly send the notes to Hannah to write up into our strategy deck.

2:30pm… No time to waste

I’ve got a really exciting marketing review session now with an internal marketing team. This agency, who delivers communication strategies and content for women’s health brands, completed its transformation journey with us at the start of the year (which you can read more about here), and now I’m playing more of an advisory and mentoring role to their marketing team who are in the throws of implementing the plan we developed.

We all know old habits die hard and it’s too easy to stay in our comfort zone, so my role as outsourced marketing director now is more about ensuring the team remain focussed and the plan stays on track and most importantly the team continue to evolve things as they start to see great results.

During this session we look at the goals we set out for the last quarter, what strategies we’ve implemented, what results we’ve achieved, and if these are taking us in the right direction.

Lots of open and honest discussion takes place around what’s worked, what hasn’t, and what we can learn from the last quarter to take into the next. I use a really simple (yet effective) method of grouping our conclusions together… stop, start, continue!

I love working with client’s internal marketing teams as it’s where I lived my life before setting up Purple Banana. I get a real buzz out of helping marketers overcome some of the challenges I’ve faced in the past and working together to come up with new ideas and better ways of working that I can share with other clients too.

4pm… We’re on the home straight

Time for a quick natter with the hubby who is WFH today, which mainly revolves around who’s turn is it to pick up Jude from after-school club and take him to his swimming lesson!? I’m not sure which is more taxing on the brain – client work or parenting duties!?

Phew, I’ve got another hour as Gareth is on “Jude duty” today. Time to catch up on a few emails and do a quick wrap up of the day so I know what needs to be carried over into tomorrow – Tuesday will be off to a flying start.

5:30pm… Aaaaaand breath

Laptop switched off, oven turned on, it’s time to flick the brain into the most important role of the day… until tomorrow I will be known as “Mummy” and not an outsourced marketing director.

Kettle – switched – on…

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