an unconventional guide to Amsterdam

“A jack of all trades is a master of none, but oftentimes better than a master of one.”

Summary

I am a professional digital marketer (9+ years of experience) skilled at balancing the creative side of developing engaging content, with an analytic mindset required to optimize channels to generate traffic, attract customers, and drive sales, for both B2C and B2B markets.

I would characterize myself as a T-shaped marketer, as I have broad knowledge in many areas of marketing but my expertise lays in content marketing, and this required skills set: Copywriting, SEO, Research, Graphic Design, Web Design.

Aside from this in-depth knowledge of content marketing. I’ve also developed much broad marketing knowledge. For instance, I have:

  • developed GTM strategies
  • managed CRM implementation and sales process development
  • integrated marketing automation tools and growth hacking strategies
  • created end-to-end marketing funnels
  • organized and hosted live and online events
  • developed and evaluated advertising campaigns
  • created new brands and launched them
 
I am also really good at Googling things, which means I know how to find the answer to most problems. It’s an important problem-solving skill that, surprisingly, many people don’t do well.

Work Experience

AMSTERDAM | 1/2023 – Present

As a senior member of the Revenue domain and content team, I am responsible for helping B2B/B2C tech scale-up clients audit, optimize, and drive their content strategy to build a revenue engine for their business. This involves nailing down their ideal customer profiles, target personas,  value proposition, product/service offerings, brand identity, and tone of voice, and then using this strategic foundation to plan and produce various content assets to support their overall marketing efforts. 

Aside from the content-specific operational initiatives I am also responsible for developing and supporting overall marketing strategies for our clients. 

Content Examples

Website and Landing Pages

Articles and Whitepapers

Social Posts

AMSTERDAM | 1/2019 – 1/2023

Previously, Digital Marketing Specialist.

As the marketing manager for spriteCloud, I was responsible for all content, promotion, public relations, marketing technology, and marketing-related activities for this Amsterdam-based B2B software and cybersecurity testing services provider and its SaaS solution, Calliope Pro.

Accomplishments include:
  • Personally, redesigned and rewrote both spritecloud.comcalliope.pro, and cpro.nl websites.
  • Implemented lead generation with content marketing and growth hacking strategies.
  • Responsible for all website, brochure, and marketing copy & visual assets.
  • Implemented Hubspot CRM and various MarTech solutions in sales and marketing.
  • Increased traffic (+10%), avg. session duration, (+35%), and lead generation a small marketing budget.
 
Content Examples* 

*due to a site redesign many links are no longer working

At the moment about 80% of the website traffic for spriteCloud is brought in by its blog content.

Part of my content marketing plan was to bring together various content spread across multiple blog posts into several 10x style pillar posts that have more SEO authority (ranking better), and have improved internal linking that also uplifts the SERPS positions of the other linked posts. 

The product of this process was our Test Automation Guide and our Cucumber and Gherkin Guide. These posts rank well and continue to bring in more organic traffic over time. 

Whitepapers

To generate leads for our cybersecurity director to contact, I collaborated with a freelance content writer on an article titled “Dispelling the Illusion of Security” and an introduction to the concept of cyber resiliency.  The landing page for the article.

Events

In preparation for beginning to host events and Meet-Ups, we started hosting our own internal TEDtalk still Friday afternoon talks, called spriteTalks. We’ve been doing it for well over a year now and our staff have gotten better at presenting but sadly the coronavirus has meant that we have not actually hosted any events.  Webinars are in the planning for the future and we have attend a few local events.

Thought Leadership Material 

Testing Titans Interviews are interviews with public figures in the software testing and cybersecurity speaking world. This email interview format is less time-intensive than filming and editing the interview and served as a good way to test some ideas on thought leadership content.


Press Releases

Here are some examples of press releases I have written in my time at spriteCloud.


Brochures

spriteCloud’s Swag page for brochures. This was the first brochure I created explaining spriteCloud’s new cybersecurity testing services.

This is a brochure for our software testing subscription service that I created to resemble the style of other existing brochures.


Web Design

Content Marketing requires a decent website and the one I inherited when I join spriteCloud was about 10 years out of date. Using WordPress and a page builder called Elementor I was able to make new website designs for spritecloud.com and calliope.pro Using WordPress meant that we are able to quickly update content and create new pages without a web developer, which we don’t have in-house.

Here is a link to a blog post introducing the new design and looking at past ones.


Social Media Channels

AMSTERDAM | 4/2018 – 11/2018

CustomConcepts B.V. is an eCommerce scale-up selling custom printed phone cases and apparel, operating as 2 brands, on 20 localized websites, in 7 languages and with €5M yearly revenue.

Accomplishments include:
  • Managed content creation and SEO copywriting with a team of 10+ interns, increased organic traffic by 70%.
  • Managed simultaneous content optimization projects to improve SEO, readability, and conversion rate.
  • Reported on-site SEO metrics using Google Analytics, Data Studio and SEMrush.
  • Wrote copy for all channels and websites, specifically for banners, landing pages, and product texts.
  • Wrote the copy for the Heart Beat landing page.
  • Helped create and manage global campaigns and their creative assets.
  • Differentiate the two brands by creating content style guides.
 
Content Examples

Landing page copywriting example while with Custom Concepts to promote the new Heart Beat design.

A lot of the writing for Custom Concepts involved SEO-based writing of eCommerce product descriptions and category pages for the GoCustomized and My Personalised Case brands. This also involved managing the translation process for the localized brand pages for Germany, Spain, Italy, France, Netherlands, UK, US.

Examples of blog posts for brand awareness 

AMSTERDAM | 4/2014 – 2/2018

whatsgood. was a video production agency that included clients like Facebook, Heineken, LUSH, LinkedIn, and ADE. The attached content platform racked up 550K combined views, 6.5K Facebook followers, over 500 blog posts, 60+ videos, 2 music videos, a mini-series and a documentary

Accomplishments include:
  • Created SEO content that resulted in ~5K monthly visitors and held the first position in SERPs for the “sneaker stores in Amsterdam” keyword.
  • Skilled in photography, videography, copywriting, project management, analytics, onsite SEO, and social media marketing.
  • “The Barber Stories” mini-series was covered by Het Parool, Algemeen Dagblad, AskMen.com, and others.
  • Acquired clients and successfully turned briefs into video content.
  • Planned and managed projects ranging from video shoots, photoshoots, content strategy, and multi-channel campaigns.
  • Designed and built an eCommerce shop selling fashion and art.
 
Content Examples

Our company was a video production agency and content platform that I co-founded and served as Marketing Director. The webpage is no longer active, so unfortunately the website content (500 + blog posts) is no longer available to share. However, there are examples of video content made for clients and for our own content platform that can be seen on whatsgood’s Vimeo and YouTube Channels. If you scroll through the whatsgood. Facebook profile you can see the post that links to the blog, but the website is no longer live. 

whatsgood. Vimeo (for B2B content)
whatsgood. YouTube Channel (our own content)

During this time we also launched a short-lived eCommerce shop selling art and fashion. Some examples of product photography as well as some GIFs from our lookbook. We also made 6 case study videos for Facebook for Business, but they no longer appear to be on the platform. Some of the brands were OHMYBAG, Colourful Rebel, Natuurhuisje. You can see the videos we made for LUSH, Amsterdam Dance Event, Innovation Booster, as well as some of our own content such as our interview with hip hop artist Typhoon.

AMSTERDAM | 6/2013 – 12/2015

Laureate Online Education (LOE) offers online master’s degree courses from four institutions to students around the world. I worked in a consultative sales capacity where I helped prospective students through the applications process and through the first 3 months of the program.

Accomplishments include:
  • Some achievements included putting forth the most prospects to become students, average daily metrics of 70+ calls, 2 hours of talk time, and achieving quarterly targets of roughly €14,000.
  • Marketing champion for the Roehampton University team.
  • Warehouse Manager
  • Barista
  • Business Intelligence Assistant

Education

MSc Marketing
2018 | University of Roehampton, London
BA International Business and Management
2012 | Hogeschool InHolland, Diemen

Hard Skills

  • Analytics (Google Analytics, SEMrushSearch Console, HubSpot, Hootsuite)
  • Adobe Creative Suite (Photoshop, Indesign, Illustrator)
  • Video Production (Premiere Pro, Sony Vegas Pro, DaVinci Resolve)
  • CMS Tools (WordPress, Shopify, Magento, Sqaurespace, WIX)
  • PPC (Google Adwords, LinkedIn, Meta)
  • SEO/SEM (Search Engine Optimization/Search Engine Marketing, Paid Social, Paid Search/Display)
  • Email Marketing and Automation (MailChimp and Hubspot)
  • Social Media Marketing
  • CRO and A/B Testing (Google Optimize)

Soft Skills

  • Writing and Copywriting
  • Verbal Communication and Presentation
  • Creative Thinking
  • Analysis and Reporting
  • Marketing and Content Strategy
  • Storytelling
  • Resiliency
  • Critical Thinking and Problem Solving
  • Time Management
  • Teamwork and Collaboration
  • Leadership and Management

an unconventional guide to Amsterdam