Meet Mark
Mark is the founder of Oaks Digital, and has been working in the digital marketing industry since 2008. Before setting up Oaks Digital, Mark spent many years working as a sales and account manager for a digital agency, working with SME’s to develop their websites and market their business online through approaches such as SEO, PPC and content creation. Mark went on to excel at Wales Online, where he worked his way up to digital director for the countries number 1 news publishing website in terms of local audience reach. During a 6-year period with Wales Online, Mark worked on digital marketing campaigns for the likes of GoCompare, The National Trust, The WRU, The Royal Mint and Visit Wales.
We asked him about his career influences, his top tips, and his ambitions for Oaks Digital.
Oaks Digital founder Mark Oakman
What have been your career influences?
“Way back in the 90’s is when I developed my first website using HTML code. It was part of an IT project at school, and we were asked to develop a website on anything that interested us. Being a big Everton fan I decided to create my website on my favourite football team. From memory, it included a page about some of the players, a match report from a recent win, and information about the stadium and the history of the football club. I loved it, and it influenced me to pursue a career in digital marketing… although I quickly realised that I was best skilled at talking to people and helping them make sense of digital marketing rather than developing websites!
Traveling has been a huge influence for my mindset for my career. I was lucky enough to spend 3-years traveling and working in Australia and New Zealand, and spent a bit of time working at a vineyard near Queenstown. We’d often go wine tasting at one of the nearby competitors at their request to give them feedback on their product. which I initially found odd given that we were helping a competitor out, but when I quizzed them they didn’t see it like that. Their view was that by sharing industry insights they were improving each others businesses, and also the reputation of their region as a whole for producing great wines. I love this mentality, and it has definitely influenced me to want to create a similar culture for the digital marketing industry with strong collaborations with others.. particularly as there’s so many businesses out there that are suffering from poor digital marketing experiences. I hope that by collaborating with others helps to strengthen our industry’s reputation so that agencies and clients alike can all benefit!”
Mark’s former colleagues in New Zealand overlooking the vineyard where they worked
What’s your 3 top tips for businesses wanting to grow their digital marketing presence?
“The first has got to be to get your foundations in place. From your website to your social media profiles, make sure that your branding and messaging really resonates with the audience that you are aiming to engage with. I always ask business owners why people should buy from them instead of one of their competitors, and often the answers that they give are not consistent with what’s at the forefront of their website or social media messaging. Take time to understand your audience and why they buy from you before setting your foundations with a strong value proposition.
The second is to have a clear digital marketing strategy so that everything you do has a reason and can be linked back to your business goals. That way you will find consistency and market your business with purpose. Time and time again I see businesses applying short term tactics to their marketing efforts that don’t yield results, so they quickly move onto the ‘next thing’. Don’t fall into the trap of marketing in isolated silos, and instead take time to nail down your strategy and what approaches are going to help you reach your audience at every stage of their consumer journey. Also seek help from an outsourced resource if you need help to shape your strategy, rather than making it up as you go along as that will only cost you time and money and never give you the best results.
The third is final tip is to apply an 80/20 rule to your digital marketing efforts, whereby 80% of the time you are spending your time and budget on approaches that you know are contributing to your business goals, and 20% of the time you are experimenting with a new approach to explore whether or not you can unlock a new effective way of doing things. The digital landscape and your audience’s behaviours are changing all the time, so embrace things like AI and video marketing with an open mind as in time they may form part of your 80% application. What works for you today may not be as effective for you in 2-years time.. so keep experimenting and adapting as you go. And look at your performance data to help inform you what should keep as part of your 80%.”
What are your ambitions for Oaks Digital?
“Being an Everton football and Welsh rugby fan means that I’m naturally a big supporter of the underdogs, and love a great underdog story! By starting Oaks Digital I’m hoping that this is the beginning of our own underdog story, and that we can mix it with some of the bigger, more established digital agencies on certain projects.
Mark with his twins in their Everton kits (the poor pair!)
I always see us being a boutique agency to maintain our USP of delivering results with a personal service, and over time I hope to be in a position where we’re really selective about the clients that we work with. I really want us to work long-term with like-minded people, that have interesting businesses and where we both feel fulfilled by each others successes.
I also want Oaks Digital to be a driving contributor in flying the flag for good digital marketing practice, so that we’re doing our bit to improve the reputation of our industry. Essentially, no one wins if businesses follow bad digital marketing practices, so I’d like Oaks Digital to build a reputation of trust over time that means people think of us when they need help or advice.”
If you’re interested in speaking with Mark to learn how we can support you with your digital marketing needs, then contact us today to arrange a catch up.