The diary of… a marketing manager

Have you ever wanted to get a glimpse into working week of a different job role? We asked our members to share their Monday – Friday routine with us to help showcase the massive variety of roles available to women in the industry.

Sarah Russell of Aubrey Allen, an award-winning national catering butcher shares her week. Sarah works on campaigns for both their retail and wholesale departments.

Monday

I start my week at our Leamington Spa shop, once my children are up and ready and I’ve dropped my youngest at nursery.

My first task is always to make a coffee – checking the inbox is easier with caffeine! We’re working on some specific shop campaigns at the moment and my next task is to analyse the previous week’s sales. We have wonderful English Wagyu Beef in stock and I’m pleased to see there’s been a week of great sales across a range of cuts from new and repeat customers as well as lots of subscribers to the exclusive Wagyu Club we launched.
Having an office above a busy high street butchers, deli and cheese shop means I have to tailor what I work on when I’m based here to suit the fast pace of the shop, but the buzz from the busy floor and an energised team is a great motivator and I tick off a number of meetings with the senior shop team regarding Easter, Platinum Jubilee celebrations and upcoming BBQ marketing.

Before it’s time for the nursery run again I make a video with our Butchery Manager showcasing Wagyu Rib. I schedule the video for Instagram and TikTok and email our Wagyu Club with the news that we have new cuts available.

Tuesday

It’s an early start today at our Coventry Academy, located a stone’s throw away from Aubrey’s HQ. A small team across the company have been working for a while with Teach First planning a visit from a local school and today is the day they join us!

We’re excited to be spending the day hosting a group of schoolchildren and giving them an insight into roles and routes into our company. It’s a scheme Aubrey Allen have been involved with for years and it’s really important that we give back to the community, whether in the form of our regular work with local homeless shelters, or in this case with schools and education.

Three fantastic guests join us and get involved for the day including the Master of the Worshipful Company of Butchers, Margaret Boanas, which is such a privilege as she is a fantastic ambassador for women in the meat industry.

The day goes brilliantly, not least because the children get to ‘build a burger’ for lunch with toppings including hash browns, biscoff and even pop tarts! The feedback is fantastic and we’re all exhausted come home time.

Wednesday

My day off! I’ve taken Wednesdays off since having my first child 7 years ago and it’s a lovely way to spend quality time with my children before they’re school age. My youngest is only 1, so plans usually revolve around walk, visiting a park and getting coffee.

Thursday

I work from our Head Office on Thursdays which is a completely different pace to the shop. The coffee still has to come first and then I settle into a day of projects and internal meetings.

I share an office with our Sustainability Administrator and we talk about our latest progress. As a company we have made so many changes to get us closer to becoming carbon neutral and there are plenty more to work on. Our marketing message to chefs and retail customers alike always has an element of our sustainability mission.
This same topic is the subject of discussion in my next meeting as a small group of us catch up over our new website which is being built behind the scenes. There’s so much we want to achieve with this website and so much information that we want to provide, our two hour meeting has only scratched the surface!

A quick afternoon catch up with another member of the marketing team means a chance to look at our recent social media metrics and success using digital brochures for both wholesale and retail customers, and what’s coming up. Our next campaign features cheese – one of my favourite things!

Friday

Back to Leamington to work today. I have a meeting with the shop manager to discuss recent campaigns so we head out with our laptops for a coffee. There is no shortage of wonderful coffee shops in Leamington, but one of our favourites happens to be a neighbouring café that we also supply meat to, so we go there.

Plans are in full swing for our aptly titled Kitchen Project which will see our on-site chef create, test and tweak new desserts, pies and ready to cook meals. As well as social media marketing we’ll be working with local influencers to promote some of these family-friendly meals and also using our database to target specific shoppers.

As well as our shop and wholesale unit we also have a French restaurant which is where I started with the company almost 18 years ago as a waitress. I end the day here with our MD and our wine supplier tasting new options for our next few ‘Wine of the Month’ recommendations. I get some footage from the tasting that will end up in an Instagram Reel for the restaurant social. All in day’s work!

Then it’s back home in time for the children’s books and bed and I’m ready for the weekend to begin.

Huge thanks to Sarah for this dive into her weekly diary! You can find out more about the She Looks Like Me campaign here and become a member of MBW here.

Sarah Russell, Marketing Manager, Aubrey Allen

Connecting incredible women in the meat industry is what we’re all about at Meat Business Women. If you’d like to connect with Sarah on LinkedIn, click here