Untangled: Where it all began...

Let’s get one thing straight. I LOVE marketing. When I met a Marketing Manager during my university placement at a local hotel I couldn’t believe such a role existed. I can get paid to write blogs, send emails and create social media content?! My dream job did it exist after all!

After returning to university to study a masters in Digital Marketing I began my career as a Digital Marketer. Sending emails, creating content and my personal favourite… planning campaigns. It was everything I imagined it would be, but…

After some time in the digital marketing space I began to feel like something was missing. I loved all things digital marketing but I wasn’t sure if I got the same buzz as my colleagues from our achievements. I wanted to feel like my marketing strategies were making a difference, and writing a successful email to promote the latest pair of trainers wasn’t doing it for me.

On a coffee date with my best friend, who had a PR role in the charity sector, I had my first light bulb moment. What if I could do what I loved and make a difference? A digital marketing role for a charitable organisation seemed like a no brainer!

So I set to work researching what courses I could sign up for that would tell me what I needed to know about marketing in the charity sector. Deep in the depths of dead-end google search results I made a discovery. It wasn’t just that online courses for marketing in the charity sector were unattainable. Online courses for marketing in the charity sector… well, they were non existent!

During my research, I found articles pointing charities toward generic online marketing courses that were free or cost effective but none that had been designed with the unique quirks of the charity sector in mind (the HubSpot Email Marketing Course is GREAT don’t get me wrong but don’t expect to find any modules on crafting the perfect appeal email or converting your subscribers to passionate volunteers). During my time as a digital marketing manager, I’d completed plenty of these courses, and I learnt A LOT from them - but, I already knew that none of them would equip me the specific skills I needed to confidently step into a shiny new role in the third sector.

Feeling disheartened I parked the dream and went back to the 9-5. However, a year later, on another coffee date with that same friend, she asked me for some help. Any marketer worth their scheduling tool knows the necessity of consistently upskilling to stay ahead of the marketing game. Similarly, any charity marketer knows the lack of budget available for said upskilling. My friend was stuck at that familiar crossroads. In my role at a marketing agency I had been providing training for local business around all areas of digital marketing. Seeing the moment in someone’s eyes when they finally understood what the heck a Meta Pixel was or learnt their meta tag from their meta title brought me serious joy. My friend, in need of upskilling but lacking the training and development budget to do so, came to me to teach her what I knew. Maybe I was more equipped than I thought?

Enter my second light bulb moment: what if I could combine my three passions of digital marketing, teaching others what I knew and helping charities make a difference? What if I could solve a problem for those in the charity sector looking to upskill their digital marketing knowledge? It was at this moment the vision for Untangled Marketing was born: affordable and sector-specific digital marketing support for charities.

Fast forward to today. After scouring books, free downloads, articles, you name it around digital marketing for charities (spoiler alert: there weren’t that many), speaking to my friends in the charity sector (thankfully there were a good few of them) and applying everything I’ve ever learnt in my time as a digital marketer, I am now absolutely delighted to introduce you to Untangled.

Whether you’re dreaming of becoming a charity marketer, you’ve been in the industry for a while or you’re the founder of a charity looking to get a grasp on the world of digital marketing - welcome!

I hope that Untangled can become that trusted resource to help you upskill, grow in confidence, and ultimately, make a difference.