Head of Marketing | Rocket Leisure
Venn St. Records, Northcote Records, Old St. Records and Eastcheap Records - four live music and cocktail bars that are all about the good times.
A 20-something-year-old’s dream job, that’s for sure! Rocket Leisure hired me in May 2017 as their Head of Marketing. With no predecessor to hand over the role, it was up to me to craft and create a well-rounded marketing output for the business.
Working in some of London’s top agencies means I had managed many campaigns that integrated PR with social media, branding, events and the rest, so I knew I was up for the challenge. It was exciting to have the opportunity to put everything I had learned over the past five years into practice with a brand that I already knew and loved.
Here’s a bit of insight into how I built the strategy and processes that they still run today. By no means is this an extensive list, it’s just a snapshot of some of the keys bits ‘n pieces:
SOCIAL MEDIA
The best free marketing tool out there. To take the best advantage of it, you have to be regular with your posts and consistent with your branding and messaging.
I defined the tone of voice for the bars, giving them a personable, excitable feel, like chatting to your mate ahead of a great night out.
The look and feel of the feeds were disjointed, so I created (and constantly add to) a bank of strong, professional images showcasing our live bands, cocktails and pizzas, and the incredibly cool interiors. All photo shoots are carried out in the bars, and mostly with the same photographers, to ensure that beautiful consistency you see on the feeds.
Post every damn day. With five accounts in total, each with Facebook, Twitter and Instagram, the scheduling tool Hootsuite became my best friend. Every Monday morning is dedicated to setting up the posts for the week ahead, ensuring it stays relevant but also ticking it off my to do list for the rest of the week giving me brain space for other tasks.
THE YEAR AHEAD
Hello structure! There’s nothing I love more than getting organised, and then getting everyone around me organised.
With over 900 live music shows a year, there’s no shortage of things to promote. Additional to the daily performances, there are the biggies throughout the year, such a Bank Holiday weekends, Halloween, New Year’s Eve etc.
Timelines are an event planners best friend, so I create a spreadsheet of our key events at the start of every year, mapping out strict timings: when the event idea has to be ready, when the artwork has to be complete, when the acts need to be booked by, and when promotion starts etc. I stick it up on my wall and look at it every day so I’m always ahead of the game….and so is everyone else!
ARTWORK
Creating sh*t hot promo posters to hang in the bars and put on our socials and website was right up there on my list of things to sort a process for. It’s an opportunity to not only shout about your upcoming events, but shout about how cool your brand is and get really creative with your output.
With so much to promote, I knew I needed to bring a freelance graphic designer onto a monthly retainer. After weeks of research, a few wrong turns and unsuccessful trials, I sourced the perfect graphic designer for our job. We have developed an awesome working relationship over the years, resulting in buckets of bad*ss artwork for all types of events and offers.
WEBSITE RE-DESIGN
Generally, your website is the first place people will go to check you out (or maybe Instagram THEN your website). A good-looking, easy-to-use site is an absolute must for any business.
If you go into any of the Records bars, you will be met with an incredibly cool interior, a buzzing energy fit for any night out, and a band ready to blow your socks off. When I joined, the websites were a simple one page, grey and black design, mostly showing incorrect information. Additionally, they were a total pain to update in the back end, which is far from ideal when you have a monthly schedule of events to upload.
With expansion on the horizon, it was time to take things to the next level to ensure we were presenting ourselves as a business and a brand who really had their sh*t together. With the need for decent insights to track marketing activity, a simple back end to cut down the time and effort needed to upload all the events, and a cutting edge design to make us stand out from our competitors, I worked long and hard to find the right agency for the job. It’s important to go through the long process and not cut corners to ensure you’re getting the best website your budget can allow.
I worked with a London-based agency called KOTA, and I could not be happier with the result. It took time, energy, attention to detail, consistency and a whole lotta love to get the sites to where they are now - and that’s how every web design process should be. Together, we took the brand to the next level, streamlined the online customer journey and the booking process, and created websites that - I may be biased but - are probably the best looking bar websites in the whole of London. Check them out for yourselves here!
Bringing the bars to life online, developing streamlined branding and creating organised processes is not something that happened overnight. Building, growing, learning and crafting takes time and energy, something business owners don’t always have a lot of.
If you’re feeling overwhelmed, don’t know where to start, or simply think your marketing is not where is should be, then get in touch. I’d love to help lighten the load, and take your brand to the next level.
R.Jx