Digital Marketer apprentice case study: meet Sara

Sara admits that she wasn’t aware of apprenticeships until she started looking for jobs after finishing university. She completed her degree in audio & visual communications but was finding it difficult to find a job in this field, which is when she came across a digital marketing apprenticeship job advert online. Sara thought it was a promising opportunity to continue her studies while making an income – the best of both worlds.

Sara described the times she had to run large digital marketing campaigns. She developed the confidence to manage campaigns from idea through to concept and the finished product, using her personal passion and knowledge in graphic design along the way.

“I was lucky and really happy because my employer gave me the time to learn, take my time and figure out any ideas that came to mind. It was a new business, so the main campaign was about gaining brand awareness. I also started to learn how to animate, illustrate and create gifs. It all came from an idea, and I mentioned it to my manager who said: ‘go for it, take the time you need and develop that skill if you want to.’”

Sara had to take into consideration the objectives set out for the campaign which helped her form ideas and creative development.

A misconception with apprenticeships is how much time and commitment are involved. With a full-time job to do as well as undertaking apprenticeship responsibilities, this sometimes seem demanding or overwhelming. However, Sara positively described her experience and the variation that her apprenticeship provided: “It was nice because I don’t like routine or working on the same thing. I need a break from time to time – so when I’ve been doing something creative, having that time to sit down, study and do a little bit of writing for my apprenticeship course was a perfect balance for me”.

Sara also used her downtime and any other time that was not spent on her apprenticeship to develop new skills in graphic design.

After completing her apprenticeship with a Distinction, Sara attained a new role as a Digital Marketing & Graphic Coordinator. Sara explained that her employer was “really impressed with the portfolio that I had built from my apprenticeship. From all that freedom to create and all that time I had to learn develop the skills I really care about – that’s what helped me land this role.” Sara uses the skills that she learned on her apprenticeship in her new role, making her feel comfortable completing her day-to-day tasks.

While she’s “enormously proud” of all the ideas that she produced, her biggest achievement was creating an account for her company that has a million views and shares, alongside three other company accounts that collectively have over 20 million shares and views – “and I am so proud of that.”

This is a fantastic achievement for Sara and a notable example of how digital marketing apprentices can come onboard and bring with them new ways of marketing, developing ideas, and implementing them into the business to achieve incredible results.