Charlie Harris from digital performance agency, connective3 talks to Women in Agencies about her role, how she rose to Director level and the aims of the agency – including their strategy for growth and staff retention.
Tell us about your role at connective3
As connective3’s Sales and Marketing Director my role is to help drive the business growth through new business lead generation. At connective3, we do this through two key methods; outbound sales strategy, and marketing activity to drive inbound leads. My role is to take our business objectives and to create a marketing strategy around these, focusing on building our client base for new products, or within new territories.
What was your experience before this role?
I have been in agency marketing for nearly 10 years now, starting at Marketing Manager level and working my way up to Director. Across that time I’ve built my experience in many different forms of marketing from awards, to events, rebrands, team management, product launches and more.
With experience working both for small start-ups and larger networked agencies, I have had a lot of exposure to the varied approach needed in agency marketing, taking different budgets and target markets into consideration when building effective marketing strategies that drive business growth.
What kind of clients do you work?
connective3 works with clients across many sectors, from travel to fashion, finance, tech, sport and more. It’s a very exciting agency to work for from that perspective as the team truly do have a broad range of sector experience.
This means when it comes to the marketing and sales, we essentially have free reign to go after any and all brands we’d love to add to our books!
How has the agency grown over the years and what do you do to engage your staff?
Since we launched in 2019 we’ve gone from 7-104 in headcount which is a huge jump in such a short period of time. Staff engagement really is at the heart of everything we do at c3, as we fundamentally believe any agency is only as good as the team that work there.
We’re passionate about employee engagement and have a robust benefits programme, private healthcare, hybrid working and extensive training for all c3 team members, with the view that we can support our team not only with their professsional development but with their personal development too.
What are the key areas of agency strategy at the moment that your team focus on?
Growth is the core focus of the Sales and Marketing team, it has to be as we are an agency that has hugely ambitious plans for global expansion in line with the growth we’ve already experienced to date.
Sales attribution is crucial within our strategy as a team, as we’re investing significantly in headcount and events and marketing activity. We use Hubspot and across the last four years we’ve been able to establish clearly not only where our leads come from, but what strategies are most effective to drive leads of higher values as well. This has been integral to not only reporting on team success but to also helping us justify future spends and hires for the Sales and Marketing team.
What kind of approach does the agency have to training and development?
Our external training budget allows our team to travel to attend industry leading events across the UK, Europe and even the US. In addition to this we run events of our own which feature industry leading speakers, and all team members are encouraged to attend.
Internally we have a programme of training covering topics such as neurodiversity, mental health awareness and management and leadership skills. In addition to this every team member has the opportunity to choose a mentor within the business to support them with further cross channel learnings, and development within their role. All of our team are also encouraged to practice their presentation skills and upskill the agency in the process through our team 101 sessions, hosted in our auditorium.
What kind of key benefits the staff at connective3 enjoy?
We offer hybrid working, 23 days holiday + 5 wellbeing days, and have a work abroad scheme to enable our team to work abroad for up to 6 months each year. Further key benefits include team fitness classes and monthly wellbeing breakfasts.
One of our favourite perks is our volunteering abroad scheme, where each year the team are invited to pitch for the opportunity to work abroad, and support a charity of their choice anywhere in the world. C3 cover the costs, and so far have sent team members to support various initiatives in places such as Thailand, Costa Rica and Nepal.
What have you got coming up over the next few months at connective3?
We are super passionate about running digital marketing events in the north, to bring together the northern digital community. We’re currently in the final stages of confirming 2024 dates for our owned events Digital Bites and Up North – both events will be taking place in Manchester, and will be free to attend. They do however always sell out, so if you’re based in the North keep an eye on our socials to make sure you can get a space!
A huge thank you to Charlie for her interview! If you are interested in finding our more about connective3 head on over to their website where you can learn about their services, team and benefits! If you or your agency would like to feature on Women in Agencies get in touch and share your story!