After nearly a decade of working in-house, at the ripe old age of 30 I decided to switch things up and work in an agency for the first time. Craving variety in my work with a creative agency that actually do what they say they do was top of my list. So six months ago I started with Digital 24, and haven’t looked back! Here’s 6 things I’ve learnt along the way.
Agency life doesn’t have to be toxic
When I first mentioned to friends and family that I was planning to try out the agency world, I was met with ‘isn’t that, like, horrible?’. I have to admit I had the same thought. All I had ever heard about agencies was that they had a revolving door, horrible management and all the usual ‘overworked and underpaid’ commentary. As someone who had a comfortable role in-house for the last six years, shaking it all up to get a voluntary ass-whooping didn’t seem wise. That’s why I did my research on what agency I would really want to be with. I asked around to get the general consensus. What certainly helped was having met Niamh and Meghan before at a Women in Business training event. I knew they were experts in what they did, the training I had that day was invaluable and I remembered they had a certain attitude I liked – no bullshit! In addition, Digital 24 was the only agency who didn’t require prior agency experience – in fact, they preferred it if I didn’t. Make of that what you will. Did I stalk their socials and website for a while to look for upcoming roles? Maybe. Luckily for me they were looking at the same time I was. Having come from a team I genuinely enjoyed working with, I did wonder how I would settle in with this smaller team of 6. The great thing about having a small team is there is no room for ego’s or one-upmanship and we work incredibly closely together. I mean we literally sit right beside each other. Every single colleague of mine at Digital 24 is a gem, and seriously good at what they do. If you can appreciate everyone’s individual contribution and expertise, there’s no need for the envy or toxicity that seems to come with typical agency life. Also, get yourself a manager like Meghan and a Managing Director like Niamh – and you’ll never look at agency the same way again (in a good way!).
You learn faster in an agency
One of my concerns of remaining in my last role was that I wasn’t learning anything new. Completed it, mate. I had a huge fear of being a marketer in their 30’s who thought they knew everything and it was really quite the opposite. When you work in-house, you wear 50 hats at the one time. Without a shadow of a doubt, not one of those hats is for your own professional development. When was the last time you truly brushed up on your social media skills? When was the last time you delved into the data? I felt like wearing 50 hats meant that I was an expert in absolutely nothing, and that embarrassed me. One thing that appealed to me about Digital 24 was the level of in-house training. Anything you want to know about digital marketing, you won’t get better training than from the colleagues that surround you. Whilst I work in the organic side of our agency, I wanted to know everything there is to know about paid. One feeds and informs the other and vice versa. A social post that does really well is an indicator that the same could perform well on paid, likewise your Meta ad that consistently performs well shows what your in-market audience likes and what they respond to while your social media following stagnates. While paid digital marketing isn’t my job role, it’s vital that I understand the foundations and mechanics to be the best informed marketer I can be. With a robust training plan in place, I’m finally getting to learn these things that would otherwise have been pushed far down the line. So whilst the lesson might not be that you ‘learn faster’ in an agency, it’s that you actually get the chance to.
Making ‘little food videos’ isn’t as easy as it looks
When I joined Digital 24 I knew that some of our clients were FMCGs. I didn’t quite realise that we were responsible for creating their food content, but I’m a better chef for it! I distinctly remember making my first TikTok video for one of our clients and having a complete melt down. Something was wrong with the recipe I was following and I think I reshot it 3 times and even realised one of the clips wasn’t recording. I did have a moment wondering how 10 years of marketing had led me to nearly crying into a ‘super easy’ school cake. With zero coordination, I can say I’ve spilt more egg, ice cream, sauces and God know’s what else on Niamh’s floor than I’d care to admit. So content creators and influencers, I salute you – those little food videos can be hellish. The clean up, the recipe not quite working out, trying to make not so appetising things look appetising – and that’s before you have even edited it. My first attempt at editing was completely torn apart by my colleague Laura – aka our content queen / specialist. Why was she removing that super important clip of me whisking batter for 5 minutes? Obviously, I began to learn very quickly what was valuable content and what was not and over time we learnt what type of recipes worked best. Between us, Laura and I clock up about 20k steps on a content day. Is it fun? It can be, especially when a video works out really well, tastes great and performs even better – but make no mistakes, it’s hard graft. Recipes I’ve recreated at home have been a Butter Chicken Curry, Easy Eton Mess, Lazy Girl Tiramisu, Panettone Bread & Butter Pudding, Whipped Brown Butter. They’re all great easy recipes – you’re welcome.
Clients are a lot nicer than you think they are!
One of the assumptions I had before joining an agency was that clients would be difficult to deal with. I can understand where that perception comes from, because I’ve been *that client*. But the truth is, those moments came from frustration at work not being completed as promised. Thinking back to my in-house days, some of my biggest frustrations came from agencies that didn’t deliver on their word. Missed deadlines with no heads-up, vague updates, and a lack of ownership. At Digital 24, I’ve been lucky to work with brilliant clients over the past six months, and I’m excited to see who we’ll work with next. One of the advantages of being a small, focused agency is that we’re selective about who we partner with. We take time during the proposal stage to spot potential red flags and ensure there’s a good fit. After all, we know we bring value—and we want to work with people who value what we do.
Businesses still don’t understand the value of social media
I’ve worked out that social media is viewed as a necessary ‘evil’. I thoroughly enjoy it and understand its benefits and have seen its rewards first-hand, but others see it as a tick box exercise. Another thing on the to do list. A pain in the ass. What’s worse is that social media appears to be a little bit of everyone’s role and that also suddenly makes everyone an expert. It’s a ‘get a post up about that’ or ‘we should do a post on that’ rather than really thinking about what it is you’re communicating. Yet the same people know of another business doing social media really well and getting great results. They want the same as them. What’s the difference? Investment. You’ll never see the value of social media unless you put in what you want to get out. It’s not a last minute idea nor does it ever need to be signed off by 20 people. Yet when the cards are down the question always comes back – ‘What are we doing on socials at the moment?’. If you don’t know the answer, you’re not using it properly.
Data, data, data
At Digital 24 we complete monthly reports for each of our clients. Not being a part of my tasks in my previous role, I really thought it would be a huge bug bearer for me. But I love it. Having a dashboard of data at your fingertips is wonderful. No second guessing, no making decisions on a hunch. I’ve never looked at data so much in my career and moreover been happy to do it. The numbers tell a story, you write it and apply it and low and behold the following month the results of that show. So many businesses have no understanding of what their best and worst performing content is, they don’t know their social demographics (and how much this steers away from their actual demographics), when their audience is most active, how they respond to different content formats and more. Yet it’s all just sitting there waiting to be discovered. They do what they’ve been told to do, or what they’ve read somewhere once. With such a strong focus on data, ‘doing a social post’ isn’t what it used to be to me anymore. It’s strategic, it has reasoning and it has meaning. Sharing this through training, audits and strategies with other companies has been eye-opening not only for them but for myself also. If you want to know if you’re good at digital marketing, look at what the data tells you. Don’t like what you see? Change it. Like what you see? Do more of it. Indifferent? Try something new. For a girl who typically hates to see a spreadsheet coming, data is my new best friend.
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