Generalist Marketing

**SPEAKER_1** (0:01)
This week on The Cambridge Marketing Podcast, we explore the world of generalist marketing.

**Joanna Hudson** (0:06)
I haven't met anyone that's made me feel that I should specialize, but then I've not worked in big teams. I've worked in sort of smaller teams where I feel like you're appreciated more, I don't know.

**SPEAKER_1** (0:19)
From Cambridge Marketing College, this is The Cambridge Marketing Podcast.

**SPEAKER_3** (0:26)
Hello and welcome. Often in the podcast, we look at very specific areas of marketing and technical details that marketers can do. But this week, we're going to look at a generalist marketing career. And I'm absolutely delighted to welcome Joanna Hudson, who is the Communications and Engagement Manager at the Department of Veterinary Medicine at the University of Cambridge. Joanna, welcome. I think we need to start with what does a generalist do?

**Joanna Hudson** (0:55)
When you say generalist, I call that an all-rounder. And an all-rounder is someone that does a little bit of everything, like jack of all trades, and also master of all trades, I think, too. So for instance, the current role that I'm in, they didn't have a comms person before or anyone doing any marketing. They had a person doing some social media for them now and again, but that was alongside another job.
So they decided that they thought they'd bring in a comms and engagement manager. But one piece of advice that somebody gave me at the very beginning was, pick something you enjoy doing, start with that, and then things will build alongside that. So the first thing I did was I thought internal comms, and internal comms often brings external comms as well with it. So for instance, I started up a brand new All Stuff newsletter. I do it on MailChimp, which everyone will know about, and the reason I do it on MailChimp, they used to do something similar, but it was a PDF. And of course, PDF, no one makes that extra step to open a PDF. You're putting an extra barrier in the way of anybody that you want to read your messages.
So, the key thing to me was to put that budget in place to... I mean, it's not expensive, you know, really in the scheme of things, MailChimp, and then it's in the email. So, you're getting past that extra barrier for them looking at your comms. So, start asking people to come to me with their stories to tell the rest of the department and the staff was the first thing that I started, really. And that got people talking, really. I suppose it got people telling each other. And we're in a very big department. We've got an animal hospital, we've got a research department, and we've got, you know, professional staff like IT and admin staff and people like that. So, but often, you know, one department wouldn't know what was going on in the hospital, or the hospital staff, they're so busy, aren't aware what's going on in the research teams. So this was a great way to just for the internal comms, just take that alone. Great way for people to know what each other's doing. But then you become the person that's in the know then, and then once you're the person in the know, then you can use those stories for external comms as well. So that was the very, very beginning of my role, really.

**SPEAKER_3** (3:44)
So when you talk about being a generalist, you've already mentioned, because people can specialise in being in internal comms and can specialise in doing external comms. And you've already talked about the fact you do both. So what does your day look like? What does a generalist do?

**Joanna Hudson** (3:58)
First, there's what I call business as usual. So I might come in and I've set up a really key thing for comms people to do, set up your Google Alerts. So I'll put in my department name. And they've been so useful because sometimes people are so busy, they forget to tell you about things. And so the Google Alerts sometimes have shone up something that's been going on the department, that's a published article or some research that's been published.
And I don't blame anyone. They've not had a comms person. This is a brand new thing for them. And then I can find out from that Google Alert about this research that they've done. And then build some comms around that from there. So that would be the first thing I do in the morning. We'll be checking my emails and there'll be Google Alerts in there. So then I do maybe a little bit of media monitoring if I have time, which is to check if our department's come up in any news overnight the last few days. And then you check your social media, Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn and Instagram. Each one of those are in my head, I use for different parts of the role. Like for instance, Twitter is used way more for, well, I use it more and the research community uses Twitter. Sorry, X. Instagram, great for student stuff. So of course, I've forgotten to mention that we've actually got hundreds of best students in and out the school, the department as well. So I do a little bit of comms with them from time to time, and that might go on Instagram. They're more likely to see that on Instagram. Another prospective vet student likely to look on Instagram. So that's in my head, that would be what I would use. So anyway, LinkedIn for recruitment and telling people great stories that have gone on. And Facebook, a lot about, well, our audience on Facebook is more the clients that come in and bring their animals. So it might be case studies about a little dog or something that's been in our hospital. So we might use that for that. So in my head, I use the different, I don't spam everything. I don't put the same story on all the social media because I haven't got time, frankly. So I might check the socials in the morning as well, check we haven't got any, something hasn't been put up there that's interesting to me, that's from our department or one of our lead researchers might have put something in and tagged us in. So I keep an eye on that.