Sam Lambeth

As Engagement Editor, my focus is on the B2B channel, Think with Google, specifically for the Northern European region (all of Scandinavia, plus the Netherlands, Belgium and Luxembourg). However, I also liaise and work closely with the wider EMEA team, particularly other editors. Responsibilities include identifying article opportunities, interviewing stakeholders (internal and external), and writing and producing content, including playbooks, reports, white papers, thought leadership pieces, listicles and Q&As. I also manage the Think with Google weekly email, distributed to over 50,000 prominent Nordic and Benelux marketing leaders, as well as managing the Think with Google LinkedIn channel. I manage our relationship with multiple agencies and freelancers, as well as support the wider B2B team with event and ad-hoc content support. I manage and conduct reports on our article, social and email performance, and feed back to the wider EMEA team to suggest new ideas and methods moving forward. I manage our content calendars for our articles, email and social, and have experience of using Google Analytics, Canva and Asana.

Based in the University's B2B department, I managed our social media presences via Hootsuite. I produced social media content, scheduled it and conducted regular reports on our performance. I also managed our B2B newsletter, deployed fortnightly to a range of businesses across the West Midlands. I also wrote articles for our B2B website, BCU Advantage, as well as the BCU website. This entailed liaising and forging relationships with lecturers, researchers, partners, businesses and more to create compelling thought leadership pieces on timely topics. I also brought together our Press Office, internal comms, events and research marketing professionals together for a weekly meeting, as well as creating a shared Slack board, so we could share the latest intel to avoid story duplication and maximise the opportunities to share. While based in the B2B team, I supported the wider Research, Innovation and Enterprise directorate with their awards strategy, identifying opportunities and working with stakeholders to craft award entries that were engaging and fact-based. In my 18 months' tenure, we won four awards and were nominated for several more. I also managed relationships with a host of videographers and freelance copywriters, with one of my last tasks being managing a campaign for the launch of BCU's innovation hub, STEAMhouse, which entailed creating a sponsorship pack, interviews with key stakeholders, a launch video, a launch event and more. While there, I extensively used Asana, Google Keyword Planner, Google Analytics, WordPress and Canva.

Our Research site was poor and out of date and needed to reflect the needs of prospective and current PhD students, research staff and also the upper echelons of the Research Excellence Framework (REF). I worked closely with marketing staff, academic support and lecturers themselves to improve our Research site, creating something that contained up-to-date academic and researcher profiles, news, case studies, interviews, funding and scholarship opportunities, helpful blogs and more. I worked closely with Central Marketing, B2B and other faculties to ensure news stories were disseminated. I worked with the academics on their REF submissions, converting technical, jargon-heavy language into content that had a cohesive and winning narrative, without losing the facts. I managed a number of campaigns during this time, including around impactful research such as the launch of the Staffordshire Hoard, which entailed press releases, an event, a video and a case study. I managed our content calendar as well as our BCU Research Twitter page, conducting regular reports on our performances. I regularly used Premier Pro, Photoshop, WordPress, Canva, Google Keyword Planner, Google Analytics, Hootsuite and Asana during this period.

At the time, Sommet Education was a new, Swiss-owned conglomerate that owned two highly prestigious, private universities - Glion and Les Roches. These higher education institutions had campuses all over the world, including Switzerland and the UK, but also the USA, Jordan, China and Spain. I was hired as their first copywriter, based in London but having to work with stakeholders globally and regularly visit campuses. I created a style guide for both universities to disseminate to marketing and support staff, helping to forge stronger distinctions between the two universities. I collaborated with videographers, copywriters and agencies to create engaging social and video content, while also writing optimised articles, emails and more myself. I worked closely with our alumni and sales teams to craft engaging stories that drove new recruitment. Other highlights include managing the content and email calendar, working on prospectuses, interviewing prestigious alumni and more. I used WordPress, Wrike, Google Analytics, Google Keyword Planner and Canva during this time. Sadly, my time at Sommet was cut short for personal reasons involving my family, which meant I had to return home from London to the West Midlands.

One of my first roles was working in Central Marketing as a copywriter for BCU. This involved working on various print materials, including the prospectus, international guide, our magazines (aimed at prospective, current and former students, respectively), flyers, leaflets and more. Digitally, I was involved in updating academic profiles, creating news stories, contributing to the University's style guide and fact sheet, liaising with external contributors (such as photographers and videographers), event support, supervising our content calendar, and contributing new alumni profiles to our CMS system.