A new digital marketing consultancy is set to take the North East by storm with a proposition to disrupt the traditional agency model.
The brainchild of Charlotte McMurray, a much-lauded digital marketing professional hailing from South Shields, Cameo Digital commits to offering unique digital consultancy that goes beyond the typical agency-client experience.
After setting up her company earlier this year and winning a range of like-minded clients, she has successfully built a collective of outstanding local digital professionals to deliver industry-leading services and simply: do good work for good people.
Charlotte explains: “Marketing is a craft, not a commodity. It’s best carried out by individuals and small teams, not as a factory process. Cameo Digital aims to move away from the commoditised agency approach, and make digital marketing work well at a smaller, more personalised scale.
“Cameo Digital offers an alternative for businesses who, for whatever reason, aren’t getting what they need from the digital marketing agency business model. No matter how big your agency retainer, you’ll get a limited amount of time and attention from their best people, no matter what they promise at the pitch.”
Charlotte previously held the position of Digital Performance Director at one of the region’s leading digital agencies and is no stranger to industry recognition, after having her efforts recognised by EConsultancy, The Drum’s Top 50 under 30 influential Women in Digital and The Journal’s Top 35 under 35 North East Business Talent.
This is not the agency model as you know it, but instead a community of independent digital marketing and communications professionals who want to break the mould and offer a better value proposition for their clients. Businesses go to Cameo Digital with a range of challenges and opportunities that they want to pursue, then Charlotte and her collective of experts come up with the strategy that will achieve their goals in a transparent, flexible way.
First to join the collective is Gemma Neesham, who brings 8 years of expertise in SEO, gained in agency roles in both Manchester and Newcastle. She’s joined Cameo Digital after leaving her most recent position as Head of Search at a leading agency in Newcastle upon Tyne – working with the likes of Warner Bros and Danone – to seek a better work/life balance and get back to actually delivering the vital work that grows client businesses.
The freshly-launched model allows business owners and in-house professionals alike the opportunity to work directly with established senior marketing professionals, like Gemma, who aren’t hidden behind layers of junior account managers or burdened with unnecessary administrative processes.
Cameo’s highly experienced consultants are free to do what they do best: helping their clients to succeed in a flexible way that doesn’t drain their budget on unnecessary paperwork or processes that limit progress.
It’s Charlotte’s belief that this way of working will slowly become the norm, as more business owners and marketing professionals grow tired of the traditional agency model. She added: “I’m seeing a lot of very experienced agency marketers making the leap into freelancing, and it doesn’t surprise me.
“Freelancing allows good people to do the work they love to a high standard, whilst maintaining a high level of autonomy over their quality of life and work-life balance. As a senior agency marketer I was disillusioned with my profession, but as a freelancer I was able to get back to the parts of my job that made me passionate about it in the first place.”
Cameo Digital is now taking on digital projects for some of the region’s most exciting businesses, offering them to chance to work directly with the people who make things happen. No red tape or smoke and mirrors, but consultancy that delivers goals and allows business owners the chance to work with seasoned professionals who know their craft and are committed to driving results.
And what about the future of Cameo Digital?
Charlotte is very keen to avoid the foregone conclusion that growth is an absolute necessity of the business, at whatever cost.
She explains; “I deliberately don’t have huge growth targets or dreams of acquisition for Cameo. I can’t stand the start-up machismo that demands everybody set out to become the next Zuckerberg. I want Cameo to succeed, not by posting huge revenue figures, but through an accumulation of small-scale successes that genuinely make things better for businesses, particularly here in the North East.”
Charlotte will be speaking at this year’s NE Expo in Newcastle upon Tyne in November, so for businesses looking to learn about digital consultancy outside of the traditional agency model, this is the perfect opportunity to break from the norm and demand something that truly meets growth targets and objectives.
For further information about Cameo Digital, visit www.cameodigital.co.uk, and direct any business enquiries to [email protected].
