A Robert Gordon University (RGU) graduate has shared her knowledge and experience to help a new business with a digital marketing project through the Talent Exchange programme.
Fiona Smith, a 25-year-year-old MSc Digital Marketing graduate from RGU, carried out a digital marketing project for Candacraig House as part of her degree through the university’s Talent Exchange initiative which provides opportunities to access the skills and knowledge of the students in ways that are tailored to the specific needs of an organisation.
Founder and managing director at Candacraig Lynne Lino was looking to gain a better insight into the markets in North America and Europe. She was interested in improving their digital marketing strategy and investigating how this could work to encourage those markets to choose Candacraig as a holiday destination. She contacted Talent Exchange and started work with Fiona.
Fiona said: “My aim was to provide a solution that would help the target audience of the business discover the website and the business offerings.
“My role was to take full control of the project and to come up with a solution to the business problem; it was a new business that the target market were not aware of and the website was generating little traffic.
“The majority of my time was spent doing background research on the business, researching the most effective digital marketing solution then implementing it. I also wrote reports to explain every process to ensure the business owner fully understood my recommendations.
“I think it’s great that through Talent Exchange, businesses can gain a perspective from a newly trained digital marketer who is enthusiastic and keen to learn and add value to the business.”
Fiona now has a job working with a media agency as a digital planner buyer.
Lynne said: “We were a new business. We had never worked in the hospitality sector before and the house had never been used for this purpose before.
“Until meeting someone from Talent Exchange I didn’t realise this type of service was available. Fiona exceeded my expectations. She was fantastic – she over delivered.
“Fiona benefitted because she got real life experience. It is one thing learning what a business would want theoretically but she was able to see a new business perspective and the challenges we face. We benefitted from the data we received.”
Lynne added that she is so pleased with the process she is planning to do it again next year.
Yvonne Cook, project manager for Talent Exchange who is based at RGU, said: “
“The demand from businesses looking to engage with Talent Exchange has been fantastic and is testament to the needs of SMEs to flexibly tap into the skills and knowledge of RGU students.
“SMEs often don’t have the resources or the expertise to solve a specific business need so the initiative is able to help by providing easy and tailored access to the talent of RGU students who bring specialist skills and a fresh perspective.”
Following its launch in September 2014, Talent Exchange has worked with a total of 420 businesses from across 25 different sectors ranging from oil and gas, property and recruitment to healthcare, tourism and hospitality.
The initiative, which was established with funding from the Scottish Funding Council, currently has 254 student work experiences underway in SMEs where students from a range of disciplines are selected for either one-off challenges, short-term projects and placements of varying lengths.