Digital Consulting
Generally, but not exclusively, my digital consulting services suit large corporates, high growth businesses or small businesses planning for significant growth. I am based in Scotland however I work with clients globally and have experience in international markets.
Throughout my career I have worked in businesses going through significant growth and business change, often being in charge of the online customer journey from digital marketing to generate opportunity through to website platforms and online customer systems ensuring we achieved better conversion and efficiency.
I’ve always worked at a C-Suite level so I know how to manage stakeholders, gather business requirements and identify areas of improvement that will result in significant commercial benefits to the business.
Early in my career I founded and grew a digital marketing agency from just me to a staff of 8 with clients across the UK. I understand business and for small companies with aspirations to grow significantly I can add a lot of value as not only do I understand the challenges of business growth I also understand the limitations when it comes to staff time and budgets. I spend time to understand the goals and aspirations of business owners and their senior teams, what they see the future of the business being and help them utilise online and digital to achieve their goals.
I was also Head of Digital in a £4.7bn turnover FTSE250 Plc which was going through a multi million pound digital transformation project and was in charge of a large scale website redevelopment project which involved board level backing and cross department collaboration. I was also accountable for digital marketing across the business, so my involvement was right through from customer acquisition to conversion of enquiry and sale on the website.
As Head of Marketing in a fast growing multi million turnover international travel business I was also in charge of the online customer journey from global digital marketing activity through to the online customer journey. During my time there the business grew on average 20% annually with clients across over 20 countries globally, with a large footprint in North America where an office was established to deal with our client base. We also had a business in Germany which was growing on average 50% annually. My remit was global and therefore involved different strategies for different markets and when it came to redeveloping our website estates, developing a customer portal and building a bespoke booking engine we needed to ensure it was tailored for each market not only by language but in every part of the customer journey.
I believe my 16 years of experience across self employment and corporate environment puts me in a good place to add a lot of value to clients large and small who need an in-depth digital consultancy service tailored to the needs of their business.
What I Don’t Do
Its also important to say what I don't do. I don't manage social media profiles, I don't run Google Ad campaigns, I don't build websites and I don't do GDPR audits. Gone at the days when one person can be an expert doing the day to day job of all of these specialist areas. What I have is experience across all of these areas and more, and coach businesses how to utilise them to grow the business. I also have great people who do all of these things and can bring them into a project as and when a client needs. A trusted network of great people is a massive benefit to me and my clients.
If you think I can be of help to your business find out more about the process and we can arrange our initial free consultation.
What specifically can I help with?
Primarily I help businesses with their online customer journey from identifying to attracting customers, how to convert them into enquiries and sales online (website platforms, e-commerce, booking systems and social) and then how to retain them. I have spent my career owning the customer journey for a variety of businesses large and small in different industries and can offer a lot of advice on what to do, who to target, how best to convert customers, how to make their journey seamless and how to retain them.
Challenge the norm in the business
Identify areas of opportunity to exploit
Review and/or creation of marketing strategy
One-off or regular auditing of digital activity
Marketing
Website/technology
In-house team/suppliers
Project delivery
Website tenders
Website build management
Customer journey technology delivery
Sourcing and/or management of suppliers
Building and/or managing in-house teams
Building reporting to help the business assess marketing performance accurately
“Graeme was an integral member of the SLT. He is calm, organised & thoughtful, with a great sense of humour - all invaluable attributes. Graeme led the marketing team through a period of transformative change. He was instrumental in delivering Macs a new website, which is performing extremely well, generating a high volume of high quality leads for our sales team. The search & customer portal features he brought in by project managing the developers was leading edge. I have never experienced a systems implementation which came in on time & under budget! Graeme also improved our SEO & PPC return on investment by bringing in ex colleagues of his. A significant contributor to the continued growth of Macs.”
— Vicki Woods (Finance Director - Macs Adventure)
What experience do I have in this area?
At Lookers PLC i was hired as the first digital expert in their 100 year history with the responsibility of improving current performance, gaining efficiencies and delivering large scale website projects. This involved assessing all external agency performance and relationships and building an in-house team whilst reducing cost; both of which was achieved with a 6 figure reduction in cost whilst achieving enquiry growth of over 100%. The business revenue also increased from £3bn to £4.7bn during my time there.
At Macs Adventure i was brought in to manage the existing team and build the internal capability to improve performance and help facilitate their rapid growth whilst still achieving and improving on cost per acquisition so they remained profitable. During my time i built out the internal team, taking some activity in-house whilst still outsourcing to external partners where it made sense. This resulted in enquiry growth during my time there of over 100%, revenue growth of over 50% (over 100% in our German business) whilst also maintaining a healthy cost per acquisition. I also delivered large scale website re-development projects.
Prior to these roles i also have a wealth of experience dealing with SME’s in various industries, delivering projects and improving performance.
Within all of these roles i audited existing performance, developed new strategy, build in-house teams, managed external suppliers and reported into a board and owner level. i therefore have a very commercially aware mindset when recommending strategy or implementing change. The end results without exception also exceeded KPI’s set and resulted in significant revenue growth so provided excellent ROI.
