Natasha’s Work Experience with Futures

With previous marketing experience, but being due to complete a qualification in health and beauty, she was looking to gain experience working in a real marketing team to see if it was the right environment for her.

Natasha writes:

During my time at The Futures Group, I worked within the Marketing and Communications team. Before I started, I had a brief meeting with team member Keisha and Anna, Marketing and Communications Manager. We discussed my previous experience in a marketing role, what I wanted to gain from this placement and my expected workload.

Throughout the three weeks, I was tasked with understanding the Futures brand and what they do; researching news articles and providers; compiling my own set of potential social media posts; providing feedback on current campaigns, the website and the futures branding; and sourcing creative imagery. After working within a marketing role previously, the environment felt familiar to me.

My first day at The Futures Group was based off-site for a Marketing and Communications away day, where the team discussed the next campaign they were planning and met with the Director Of Programmes, Paul Price-Hazlehurst, to discuss how he saw the Futures brand growing and developing. Listening to what Paul and the team had to say was really interesting as they discussed different approaches on how to engage more people and spread brand awareness. This was my first real insight into the company and how The Futures Group markets itself to businesses and the public, and what it is trying to achieve with its marketing. The day was fun and full of exciting activities which really got my imagination going and helped with out-of-the-box thinking.

After the success of my first day, I began to delve into the tasks assigned to me. They helped me to get back into marketing and remind myself of what a role in a marketing and communications team could involve. I found the researching task the most interesting and incredibly helpful to me, it gave me an opportunity to understand the company and other competitors in more detail. It helped me to gain a better view of all the different aspects of recruitment, careers, teaching programmes and IASS (information, advice and support services). This helped to give me inspiration on what I could bring to a marketing role as well as background knowledge into marketing for a recruitment and careers company.

I put together a folder of photos to be used by the team . It was important that I followed the brand guidelines so that the images which I chose were in-line with the brand identity. I also provided suggested content for the social media pages for The Futures Group, Futures for Business and Futures for You. I tried to provide content which was different and fresh but kept within the company’s marketing guidelines and also provide feedback on what was being produced.

I was supported throughout my time at Futures by Anna and the Marketing and Communications team. They were all willing to help and provide inside knowledge whenever I needed it, to ensure my work placement was insightful, comfortable and that I was able to get as much out of this experience as possible. I was given plenty of work to do which I found really interesting and the team would check up on my progress throughout the three weeks to see what I had produced and if I needed any assistance.

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