Day in the life of Marketing

With over 500 employees here at Health-on-Line we have a wealth of various departments that, by name alone, you might not be clear on exactly what they do. From sales and finance, through to claims and IT we cover a lot.

So, every month learn about a new department, with our Day in the Life series of blogs. Hear what each department does from someone on the ground, a little about their background, what their job entails and what they like about Health-on-Line.

This month it’s Laura from marketing…

From humble beginnings working at a fish and chip shop, Laura worked her way up and spent the most significant part of her career history at Merlin Entertainments. She worked in four roles in her 10 years there, three of which were in Marketing. The career change to marketing opened up the opportunity for something different… working in the world’s oldest operating aquarium – SEA LIFE Brighton. 

There, she was responsible for all the local marketing activity and running events, including the wedding of Fatboy Slim’s sister on the glass bottom boat which floated on the ocean tank housing sharks, turtles and rays. Having such unique experiences cemented Laura’s passion for marketing and after several years, she returned to Merlin’s head office in Poole.

After a gut-wrenching redundancy, Laura worked at Farrow & Ball, where she looked after trade marketing, as well as arranging events and workshops.

When that fixed-term contract came to an end, she had an unexpected call from Health-on-Line encouraging her to apply for the Brand Executive role in the Marketing department in November 2018. She did, and the rest, as they say, is history!

>>Read about more departments here at Health-on-Line in our Day in the Life of blog series

How the marketing team is set up

The Marketing department at Health-on-Line is fairly unusual in the general marketing landscape. Whereas most marketing teams exist to acquire customers into a business, this is only a small part of what the team at Health-on-Line do.

Fiona, Brand and Marketing Manager, explains how the department is set up: “The Marketing department is split into two streams – the first stream looks after customer-facing initiatives, such as Digital Services, external advertising, customer documents or monitoring customer feedback.

“The second stream, which Laura is part of, is to look after internal and external communications; including how the brand is portrayed in our local area.

“By having a relatively small team (a total of 11 people) that looks after these areas, it means the whole team can work together very closely, and really understand what each other is doing, and how that may impact other areas. For example, PR needs to work very closely with social and internal communications to ensure Health-on-Line is distributing messages at the right time!”

Events and sponsorships

The primary purpose of Laura’s role in the communication stream is to take ownership of events and sponsorships, and make sure these tie in with Health-on-Line’s overall business ambition.

To promote Health-on-Line’s health focus, Health-on-Line are the current title sponsor for the Bournemouth Bay Run – encouraging staff and local residents to be active and improve both their physical and mental wellbeing. This year Laura project managed our involvement with this which included everything from discussing the contract with Bournemouth Council, to putting up a gazebo in Bournemouth Gardens at 6.30am!

>>Find out more about our Bournemouth Bay Run sponsorship

At Health-on-Line we also have a firm belief in rewarding and thanking our employees for the hard work they continually put in to evolving our business. We therefore hold an annual Summer party, for all our employees as well as their families, which is one of Laura’s responsibilities along with the Admin, Sales and children’s Christmas parties for our employees.

Laura loves the variety of her role and the fact that when it was being recruited for, it was jokingly called ‘Head of Fun’. There is always something to plan, so there is never a dull moment. The majority of Laura’s role involves all our employees so it’s a great way of getting to know people and very satisfying when good feedback is received after something like an event.

The Marketing team are the most collaborative team Laura has ever worked with. They’re the epitome of team work and get involved in such a range of work that there are definitely opportunities to gain skills outside of your immediate job role, with a view to progressing in the company.

If you like the idea of working for Health-on-Line and being a part of our culture then have a look at what vacancies we currently have on offer.