How we help nurture young, homegrown local talent at 21Digital
With more than 20 years of experience behind us now here at 21Digital, we’ve always been proud to be a local agency through-and-through, putting our knowledge and skills to use in helping local businesses across the North West to flourish and grow.
Throughout our two-decade history, we’ve always maintained an all-under-one-roof offering, bringing success to our clients with the knowledge and skills of our own in-house team. Our commitment to maintaining our in-house offering, coupled with our passion for the local community, is why we’ve always taken pride in finding and nurturing homegrown talent – today, we run a variety of schemes to help young people break into the vibrant digital marketing industry.
Work experience
For a number of years now, we’ve been working with local schools across Blackburn with Darwen to offer work experience placements to pupils looking to learn more about the digital marketing industry. There’s plenty of evidence to support that it will be highly beneficial for today’s learners to get a broad-ranging exposure to a variety of digital roles early on in their education.
The British Council, for example, recently predicted that as many as 65% of today’s students will be employed in jobs that don’t yet exist – and a sizeable proportion of those are likely to be digital.
Artificial Intelligence alone is already transforming the digital sector (and the world at large) on a scale that’s almost unprecedented. The World Economic Forum suggests that it replace about 85 million jobs, and create 97 million new roles, by 2025. That means a hands-on education in AI is increasingly useful for today’s young learners – and giving how we’re using it already at 21Digital, here is the perfect place!
21Digital’s Search Academy
We’re particularly proud of our Search Academy here at 21Digital, designed for the next generation of digital experts. We first launched it just over five years ago, following the success of similar schemes we’d run in the past. Essentially, it’s a new take on these apprenticeship programmes, but with a particular focus on Search Marketing, both paid and organic. If you’ve visited our office at all recently, you may even have met one or two digital
stars who’ve come to us through our Search Academy, including Tamzin Martin, who’s already been instrumental in helping us bring about some fantastic successes for clients.
Two other team members who’ve completed their apprenticeships through our Search Academy are Jody Tarrant (now our Junior PPC Executive) and Dolcie Power, who’s recently completed her Digital Marketing Apprenticeship, and is now about to move on to a full time position at one of our clients!
“It was a bit of a baptism by fire!” said Jody. “I’ve loved every second though. Most of my learning at 21Digital has been hands-on, being supported by the team as I’ve learned all the essentials about PPC campaigns – creating them, analysing them, and fine-tuning them. Now I’m a fully-fledged member of the team, I’ve got even more direct responsibility over specific client accounts, so it’s very satisfying to play a major role in their success.”
Dolcie had similarly positive things to say: “When I first started at 21Digital, I had no background knowledge of digital marketing, and being surrounded by a team of people with different skills and knowledge has really supported me with becoming the digital marketer I am today. It’s been especially great to work with Tamzin and Jody, as other apprentices on the same journey as me. It’s been an unforgettable experience, and I’m now excited for the next steps of my digital marketing career with one of our clients!”
Graduate placement
Working closely with Bolton University to provide a graduate work placement for graphic designers. It’s been a brilliant success so far, and we’ve seen some very talented graphic designers come through our doors to join our award-winning design team. Here, they expand their skills and knowledge working on a little bit of everything, from branding and webpages to social media graphics and brochures.
“I can’t believe I’ve been here two years already,” said Abi Fleming, our graduate designer. “It’s gone by so quickly! Everything is very fast-paced here, and the work is very satisfying – I love it!”
At 21Digital, we are the lead generation and e-commerce experts at 21Digital, with over 20 years of experience delivering award-winning digital marketing services, including web design, web development, SEO, Google Ads, digital consultancy, social media marketing, and email marketing. Interested to find out what we can do for you? Give us a call on 01254 660 560, and let’s talk!
