AM Marketing – Star Business of the Month – July 2014

AM Marketing Owner AmyAM Marketing, Digital Marketing, Canterbury, Kent McManus started her career in retail, managing a home and cosmetic store in Whitefriars, Canterbury. After developing a knack for marketing her store and products locally, she was headhunted by her first marketing firm at 22 years old and worked globally on health and beauty products with large clients such as Holland and Barrett, Amazon and Harrods. Her first product launch went on to win NBTY Europe’s New Product of the Year and New Innovative Product Awards.

In April 2012 at 24, she went freelance as a marketing consultant and landed a 14 month contract with DFDS rebranding the commercial areas of their new vessels and managing onboard marketing and communications for the Channel routes.  AM Marketing was born in October 2013 and this month features as our Star Business of the Month!

So Amy why did you start AM Marketing?

Amy McManus AM MarketingSince I was a child I have always wanted my own business. My parents had jobs which they regularly expressed a dislike for. They were (and still are) hardworking, honest people who seemed constantly under-valued and stressed. Unfortunately, this is not an uncommon story and after entering the job market I found myself in the same position.

I wanted to make my own business choices and make sure that those who worked for me were in an open, happy environment.

AM Marketing is an absolute joy to run and I love every single day. We provide marketing consultancy and management to large and small businesses; from local pubs to global brands. This includes strategy, digital, social media, PPC (Google Adwords), branding, websites, design, videos, photography and everything in between. We are particular specialists in PPC (Pay-Per Click) Advertising with all accounts set-up by our Google Certified and Bing Accredited Specialists. Our clients come from all over the UK (with a couple in US and Europe). As every client is individual with many diverse goals and requirements, we handle each account as such. Every proposal is bespoke to that client and their objectives to create the best results.

AM Marketing is a young company and I am a young entrepreneur. This can be a disadvantage when competing in the marketplace with larger and more established agencies. However, we tend to find that our clients prefer our lack of bureaucracy which allows their accounts to be more flexible. Regardless of our size and my age, the service we provide and results we achieve for our clients speak for themselves.

My business tip comes from my Dad:

“If you want to take the steps to start your own business, run a marathon, travel the world or anything else you could possibly dream of, don’t ever tell yourself that you can’t do it. If you’re prepared to work hard you can accomplish anything.”

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Happy 10th Birthday to KAYE

On Wednesday 12th March we joined the Kent Association of Young Entrepreneurs at their 10th birthday party and celebrated in true style with a bit of speed networking at Fruitworks Coworking space in Canterbury. It is a junior branch of the IoD and primarily offers a support network to young professionals and entrepreneurs.

First up Guest Speakers…

Paul Andrews a local Kent business celebrity kicked the evening off by telling us about his journey in business as CEO of jobsinkent.com and as a keen investor in local business. He referred to the  County of Kent currently being home to over 50,000 small businesses and with figures like that you really can see why it is the lifeblood of the County. With young people realising that starting a business is a career option it is important to give them every chance of success with the appropriate business support.

Young entrepreneur Ben Bartlett of Bush Grub was up next. An extremely quirky business that sells edible insects and promotes them as a sustainable food source for the future. Ben captured the audience well, although he did have a helping hand in the form of ‘Keith the Chameleon’ see below.  Bush Grub has been fortunate enough to secure a branding licence with ITV to use the ‘I’m a Celebrity Get Me Out Of Here’ brand on their products. We were proud to recently feature Bush Grub as a Star Business on our blog and you can catch the full story here… 

Keith the Chameleon

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Let The Speed Networking Commence…

For those of you who do not know what speed networking is, it goes a little like this…

      1. First you need two rows of people seated opposite each other
      2. Set a time limit
      3. Start the timer
      4. Tell the other person as much as you can about your business
      5. Get them to tell you as much as they can about their business
      6. Swap business cards
      7. Time’s up – swap seats and start it over again with a new person
      8. Networking ends once you have spoken to every person
      9. Remember to follow up on any potential leads

It is an awesome way to get to speak to everyone in the room without having to gatecrash other people’s conversations, which can sometimes seem like the case at the more traditional networking event. It’s a great way to start a conversation and find out if there are any potential business leads in the room. The joy of it, is that it allows you to pinpoint a lead and extend the conversation further. All in all, it is a great way to boost business contacts and for any first timers it’s a great platform to be introduced to more traditional networking.

Speed Networking Kent

Happy 10th Birthday KAYE

DigitalBeans: Star Business of the Month – September 2013

Digital Beans Search and Social Marketing

Piperis Filippaios – Managing Director at DigitalBeans specialises in Digital Marketing with a strong focus on Search Engine Optimisation. The business which was originally called uTargeting was founded when he was just 22 and he has been working hard at it ever since. A very creative and hardworking individual showing true entrepreneurial spirit with his resilience to face any business challenge.

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DigitalBeans was developed in response to supporting companies to grow their business online. Traditionally it started out with small companies and sole traders but the company is now increasingly serving larger clients ranging from manufacturers to shopping centres. The company’s success was recognised in the 2013 Kent Excellence in Business Awards receiving the status of Finalist in the Young Entrepreneur of the Year category. The company is evolving and always takes into consideration any changing trends and adapting their services to meet these needs.

There is plenty of ambition with both DigitalBeans and Piperis. The aim for the company is to grow the business and size of the team, alongside growing other ventures Piperis is already involved with. Piperis hopes to be able to maintain this momentum and grow the number of companies he is involved with over the coming years.

Business Tip:

“Take the plunge and create your own future”

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