Interview Summary

The interview featured Hayley Williams, founder of Keystone Marketing, who discussed the principles and practices of community engagement marketing. Hayley Williams defined a community as a self-identifying group connected by a shared narrative, advocating for a shift from traditional demographic personas to a deeper understanding based on psychographics. She contrasted one-way, transactional marketing with the two-way, relationship-building approach of community engagement, which she likened to "lighting a match and trying to create a fire." Williams provided a detailed case study of a campaign for Cambridge County Council to illustrate how to reach isolated, non-digital communities by leveraging trusted intermediaries like the mobile library service. The conversation also touched upon how the COVID-19 pandemic accelerated the adoption of these principles by local governments and the importance of face-to-face interactions to cut through digital noise. The interview concluded with Williams sharing the story of how she founded and grew her agency.

 

Key Points

  • A community was defined not by marketers, but by the members themselves through a shared "identity-forming narrative."
  • Effective marketing required a focus on psychographics - understanding people's interests, values, and beliefs, rather than relying solely on simplistic demographic personas.
  • Community engagement was fundamentally about creating an authentic, two-way relationship and dialogue, as opposed to the one-way broadcast of traditional marketing.
  • Successful engagement involved meeting the community where they already congregated and building on existing, trusted relationships within that community.
  • Campaigns were most effective when co-designed with input from the community or stakeholders who represented them.
  • The focus of any engagement effort had to be on the community and its needs ("make it about them, not about you") to secure genuine buy-in.
  • The success of community engagement was often measured through "softer" metrics like personal stories and observed shifts in behaviour, particularly in non-digital campaigns.

 

Interview Transcript

Transcripts are auto-generated.

 

Kiran Kapur (host) (00:00):
Hello and welcome this week. We are in the world of community engagement and stakeholder marketing.

Hayley Williams, Keystone Marketing (00:06):
It's that push and pull. So we want to be able to put sort of messages out into a community and actually start to encourage them to communicate back. Community engagement is like lighting match and trying to create a fire. So it's actually you want to spark their interest in something, talk to them in a way that's going to excite them and engage them and then encourage them to start building the story authentically with you.

Kiran Kapur (host) (00:27):
And I'm delighted to welcome Hayley Williams, who is the founder and MD of Keystone Marketing. Hayley, welcome to the show. Could we just start by what you mean by 'community'?

Hayley Williams, Keystone Marketing (00:38):
Oh, absolutely. So it's a word we hear banded about quite a bit, isn't it? A sense of community. So what we always think of here at Keystone when we think of community is actually it's a group of people that share what we would call like an identity forming narrative. So something that connects them together. And as marketers, it's really important that we don't define a community - community defines itself. And so that's really important. So it's thinking about for us all in our lives actually what things make us 'us'. And when we find people that have that same belief or that same interest and we get to build trust and engagement together, that's the building of a community.

Kiran Kapur (host) (01:13):
That's really interesting because so often in marketing we talk about creating customer personas and then we are saying that the customer is age 25 to 35 or is called Kate or whatever, and that's us imposing it. So you are very much coming from the opposite viewpoint

Hayley Williams, Keystone Marketing (01:27):
Completely. Some of your students might have seen, actually, there's a really interesting comparison of audience personas and it'll say, "OK, let's have a look at a gentleman in his seventies for instance, that's got a particular kind of level of wealth". And you could put Ozzy Osborne and King Charles together. And actually from a persona perspective, they're both male, they're both from a particular generation, but actually their interests and their histories and their visions are very, very different. And so that's a really interesting example. So we always talk about psychographics. So actually what are people interested in? So yes, sometimes you need to think about, well, where are they in the country? What age are they? And so on. But to get to the real root and the heart of a community, it's understanding some of those other parameters that are also really important because age and gender and location isn't enough. That's not how we define a community.

Kiran Kapur (host) (02:20):
It's interesting, isn't it? Again, it's quite a sort of lazy way of doing it. 'Oh, our customers are female age between this age group and based in the southeast of England' is actually relatively lazy, a way of describing people. So you said psychographic, so what does that mean?

Hayley Williams, Keystone Marketing (02:36):
So it is thinking about just getting behind what we would see normally in customer's personas, as I say, is maybe where they're based, what age they are and so on. It is getting sort under the hood of that and thinking more about - well, who are they? What do they think? What do they feel? What do they want? What are their interests and what are their values? So actually from a community engagement perspective, if you can understand a little bit more about what people really believe and what they're striving for and what their values are as either individuals or as groups, that actually helps you start to think about positioning your community engagement and your messaging slightly differently. So it is trying to get behind the person rather than just that sort of the size and stature of them actually that human connection say, yeah, who are they? What do they think? What do they really, really interested in? And how can you build that relationship and engage with them that way?

Kiran Kapur (host) (03:25):
Does that vary? I'm trying to think of some of the communities that I belong to. So I belong to obviously marketer communities and senior leader communities, but I also belong to a gardening community. So would you talk to me differently or in those different areas? Or is it my values that you are looking for? I'm sort of still trying to work out how this engagement actually works.

Hayley Williams, Keystone Marketing (03:49):
Yes. Yeah. So again, so that's a really good example actually. So in your professional career, you are part of senior leadership communities and then actually in your private life, you're really interested in gardening. And so those interests are very, very different actually. But how you interact with people as a human is probably very similar. So actually if you are an introvert or an extrovert, you will feel more comfortable in a particular scenario. So you've got interest based kind of engagement and marketing. So where we would talk to you as a gardener and then when you are communicating with other gardeners, you will be with people from lots of different backgrounds, but your shared interest and part of your identity is as a gardener. Some of that same community probably wouldn't be as interested in some of the senior management communities that you're part of. So again, it's just trying to understand. And I think actually as humans, we're all very multilayered as well. So it's not as black and white as when we are looking at personas, it really isn't. There's a lot more to it. So it is trying to really get under the hood of what people's interests and values are. So yeah, you would form two very different communities in that regard and we would talk to you differently depending on that, but you were still one person with those just sort myriad of interests.

Kiran Kapur (host) (05:03):
OK, that's really interesting. So when you talk about community engagement, where do you start with, why would you want to do that? I suppose is one question before we then come on to how do you actually do it?

Hayley Williams, Keystone Marketing (05:14):
Yes. Yeah. So community engagement is actually deeply wanting and to authentically create a two-way communication and relationship with a community. So marketing in its kind of base level, it can often be seen as quite transactional. It can often be a one-way broadcast message. So that sense of outbound communication and community engagement is actually flipping that and thinking we want to create this inbound connection. So it is that push and pull. So we want to be able to put messages out into a community that are designed by them, created for them, and in the places where we know they already congregate and actually start to encourage them to communicate back. So it's quite different from that perspective. So marketing can be very much about, as I said, almost a message that's going out to an audience often to raise awareness or to increase interest in a brand or a message. Community engagement almost it it's like lighting a match and trying to create a fire. So it's actually you want to spark their interest in something, talk to 'em in a way that's going to excite 'em and engage them and then encourage them to start building the story authentically with you.

Kiran Kapur (host) (06:20):
OK. Could you give me an example of how that works? I think that might help me to understand.

Hayley Williams, Keystone Marketing (06:25):
Yes. Yeah, absolutely. So let's talk to you a little bit about one of the campaigns that we've just recently launched for Cambridge County Council because, at Keystone, we work with commercial organisations and we also work with local government and nonprofits. So it's additional enablement project. And so in January 27, currently landlines are going to be switched off and there's a huge number of people who won't be necessarily aware of that or they won't realise that it affects them. So the marketing approach would almost be to kind of, I dunno, let's say for instance put advertising out there and banners everywhere and think about just broadcasting that message in lots of different places. We knew that for this particular audience that were at risk of isolation from the landline switch off, they're not digitally enabled in the first place. They're quite untrusting of digital and they've maybe made the decision not to get involved in it, but actually they're at risk of complete isolation and the danger of not being connected where they need help in the future.

(07:23):
So we wanted to build up a community engagement campaign with that audience, that audience weren't looking for our messaging because they switched off to it, but it was incredibly important for the local community that they knew about it. So in order to generate a sense of the community engagement campaign, we sat down with our client and we said, okay, let's start to think about not just the messaging and why this is important for your audience. We've got to understand what they're thinking and feeling and how we can engage with them. And we've got to try and put our messages out into the places where they are already congregating and where they already trust that environment. And we establish that actually a lot of the people that are at risk of this are in mobile communities in Cambridge here, and they're in these digital black spots.

(08:07):
And actually one of the ways that they communicate and build relationships in their local communities is through the mobile library service. And so actually for them when they're in a rural environment, they're may be not connecting with people all the time. They perhaps haven't got family nearby. Some of these people will live in very rural environments when their neighbours around and so on. But the mobile library is almost like that community lifeline for them and they've got the trust and the relationships that are already there. So we trained the mobile library team that when they're out and about that they could start having conversations with that community and to let them know about this in a really soft and gentle and trusting way. So they already had the relationship with the audience and actually that audience could communicate I guess in that two-way communication approach rather than being kind of marketed to.

(08:58):
So it was a softer way really much working on the relationships that were already there to convey this message to an audience that weren't looking for it, that would switch off to it if we tried to market it to them, but that were really at risk of potentially being isolated if they weren't aware of this and that they could make a change. And actually what happens in situations like that is actually, it then doesn't seem as if they're being sold to or marketed to. It's actually somebody that they know and trust that's talking to them about something that's important to them that then plants the seed and they can continue then to have those conversations with the people that they trust in the local community. So that's sort of an example of the difference. So rather than looking at metrics and saying, oh, we've put X many posters up around here and we've got meta advertising that looks at this, it's a more authentic way of building a campaign that starts to think about the audience that you want to communicate with, but actually trying to create that two-way conversation. So that feels to me like a good example of the difference between the two.

Kiran Kapur (host) (09:59):
So I'm really intrigued from a marketing perspective because you had to identify this community and then you had to work out that actually they used the mobile library service. And for anybody who isn't aware, a mobile library is literally a library, it's a library on a bus or in a van, isn't it?

(10:17):
And it comes around to local area, probably on a fortnightly basis, usually sometimes monthly, it depends where you are. And they do a variety of things. They can sort out walking sticks, they can put the ferals on the bottom of walking sticks, they can occasionally help with paperwork. There is a community that builds up around it, even though they may only be in your village for 20 minutes, half an hour once a fortnight, and you see people queuing to go and standing ready to go and you use the mobile library, it really is seen as a very important thing. So how did you identify that that was the way to reach this target market?

Hayley Williams, Keystone Marketing (10:54):
So in campaigns like that, so we always start with workshops and what we would always say from a community engagement perspective is where you can with those workshops, you've got to try and look at a co-design principle. So actually getting people involved in those workshop conversations that are from that audience. So in this particular case, we didn't go directly to those individual residents, but we went to the groups that did work with them. So there's lots of community groups, part of the council, but also for instance, there's a local organisation called Cambridge, which is all about representing rural communities. So actually getting the insight from the people who have those relationships with the audience in order to understand again, what they think and feel. So getting behind the demographics and thinking from that perspective. So actually we talk a lot here about Keystone, about being curious and it's always asking that question.

(11:44):
So another analogy we use, it's almost like having a great big ball of wool that's real tangled up and you have to tease out all the components. That's what we're doing all the time. We're testing and refining, we're saying, but how can we get to that group and why is that the way? And so we start to ask all of those questions and sometimes the answer comes actually just from having all of those different conversations. There's not normally one moment necessarily where it's the light bulb, oh, it's mobile libraries. It's actually just having the conversations through the workshops, teasing out all of those different stories and opportunities and insights. And then coming up with that one final idea from there.

Kiran Kapur (host) (12:23):
I love the fact that you go to the organisations. I was thinking trying to get a workshop of isolated people might be incredibly hard. So yes, you've found a shortcut, but a really strong way of still reaching that community by finding out what they think and instant I use target market, which is the marketer's term, and you used community, which I think is the difference in what we're talking about. So I can see that that works. Then you've got to persuade the mobile library staff to have these conversations.

Hayley Williams, Keystone Marketing (12:55):
Yes.

Kiran Kapur (host) (12:57):
So in a way, they become part of your community as well.

Hayley Williams, Keystone Marketing (13:01):
They really do. So we hear a lot about stakeholder relations and stakeholder engagement. And those two things do fit in really importantly with community engagement as well. And this is another tip I guess as well, whether it's that end community that you're wanting to engage with or whether it's the stakeholders that can help you get there, you've got to make it about them, not about you. You've got to make it about them. So with the mobile library team, it was very much around, actually, we are so grateful that you have this incredible relationship across your community with your audience, and we need your help. This is an issue that's going to affect them and we really need you to help us. Actually, what we then do is we create things like toolkits to make it really, really easy for them. Most of the mobile library team of volunteers, so they're already giving up their time, they're already committed to this audience and they are generating those relationships all the time with them.

(13:56):
And so actually generally from that perspective, we knew that they would want to help. We made it about them, we thank them so much for what they're doing, and then we made it really easy for them to get involved. And we said, these are maybe some of the challenges or the situations that this community might be in and you can help us get to them and we're going to make it really easy for you. Here's all the things that you need to know. And so again, we almost co-designed that with them and brought them onto the journey. And generally when people are approached and they're asked to do things, if it's positioned right, generally people do want to help. I think it's in our nature as humans to want to help and to want to make things better and for the greater good. But we didn't just leave them out there. We very much got them bought into the idea of what we were doing. And then those toolkits, which can work really well, and then that gives you the opportunity to repurpose your messaging and communication as well, because what we were saying to the stakeholders was information that we could then use for other parts of the campaign too.

Kiran Kapur (host) (14:58):
So again, the other thing I'm interested in is how do you know it's working? We talk a lot about control and measurement and jumping and if something isn't working and putting the new course in place and that sort of thing, how do you know that it's working? I mean, ultimately you're going to have to wait until January, 2027 and to hope that everybody's okay or can you measure it as you go through.

Hayley Williams, Keystone Marketing (15:17):
So we are definitely looking at where we can measure as we go through. This particular campaign was definitely more tricky in terms of the setup for metrics and so on because although it's community engagement, we still need to look at it in terms of impact and outcomes and metrics as you would in e-marketing campaign. This one's slightly different because of course we haven't got that digital, so we can't necessarily say X many people have engaged with this QR code, or have seen this ad, or have gone onto this website and done this thing. So it comes down to those stories and those check-ins. And actually that's where the power of community engagement really comes through as well is when a mobile library driver can say to the digital enablement team, "Actually, I've had a really amazing conversation with Mr. Smith and he's now going to talk to his daughter about helping him out with this". So it it's almost like a softer level of checking at the moment. As the campaign gets closer to the 2027 sort of deadline, there will be then other kind of interventions that can be put in place to see if we're, because a lot of what community engagement is about is almost that shift in behaviour. That's what you're trying to get to. So it's softer measures at the moment, but then as the campaign builds, we will start to see more and more people talking about it and raising awareness that way.

Kiran Kapur (host) (16:31):
I'm really interested that you said that you work with local government and nonprofits. Is there a difference in the way they approach community engagement to say a profit making organisation?

Hayley Williams, Keystone Marketing (16:42):
From our work with council, so we've been working with local government and nonprofits for quite a few of our 12 years, and I think they were perhaps slightly later coming to the fore with community engagement. So comms teams and councils have often, a lot of their focus is on communicating council messages out or inward to the members and so on and so forth. And there are strategies and there are policies and so on. And so actually our work on community engagement councils really came into the for from COVID because all of a sudden during COVID, when everything was shut down, councils realised that they really needed to engage their communities in a way that they never had before. It couldn't be a transactional message. They knew their communities were hurting, they knew that their businesses on the high streets that couldn't open were hurting, and actually all of a sudden they needed to sort of pivot the way they communicated and approached before and start thinking about their communications in a brand new way.

(17:40):
So from our perspective, it is very much still really in its infancy in these last or five or six years, whereas from a marketing perspective, we've been talking building relationships and engaging our target markets for quite some time. And so it's a wonderful journey to witness that change. And actually it means that councils can build such strong relationships with their residents by thinking about that, that two-way conversation rather than just broadcasting their council messages out. And I think that's one of the things that COVID was probably quite good for, is actually getting people to think differently about how we connect with each other. And so councillors have really taken that on board. And so yes, we see councils now undertaking a huge amount of work in that area to think about really building strong relationships with their stakeholders and with the residents and making the messages about that community, not about them.

(18:33):
So it could be the example, an example I could give you is let's say a council was undergoing an infrastructure project in a big outdoor space, a big park that's well loved and well used by everybody. It is the difference now between having a banner that says, we're updating this park, or we are making changes to this park, which is very frank, very functional, and making it more about the people that are there, which is when we know you love this area and we love it too, and together we can protect it for the future. And so it's that sense of building a, we are in it together and let's actually all appreciate this space. And then it's telling the story of those park developments over a longer period of time so that people buy into it and are excited and committed about the changes that are coming. And so it's actually about creating a sense of emotion and authenticity. So quite different between that frank functional broadcast message through to actually creating a campaign that together the community are part of.

Kiran Kapur (host) (19:31):
That's a very interesting one because I noticed that organisations like the National Trust , where you would once just have a blank area in a park that would just say, 'you can't go this way now', tend to have an information board up going, 'why we've blocked this off what we're trying to achieve'. So they might not be inviting you to give your views, but they're definitely explaining much more as opposed to having quite a sort of paternalistic, well, you just can't go this way, put up with it. So I think yes, there has been a massive shift in that sort of area,

Hayley Williams, Keystone Marketing (20:01):
Definitely. And again, so from a messaging, that's a really good example with National Trust who are very good at engaging actually with their audiences. But again, that message, they flipped it on its head and they weren't thinking about them as national trust. They were thinking about the beneficiaries and the users of that space and making it about them. And so that's just much more authentic and human and people are more likely to respond to that positively than just that frank message as such. So yeah, so it's all those principles which keep playing a part.

Kiran Kapur (host) (20:29):
So I had a look on one of your blogs and you talked about trying to make yourself stand-out because we've talked very much about non-digital, but obviously digital does come into community engagement as well. And you had a great blog post that talked about knowing your audience, posting at the right time, just trying to stand out from everything else that's going on. So again, I'm intrigued from a community engagement side, how do you make your message stand out of the hundreds and hundreds of things I get once I've sort of clicked on Facebook and shown that I'm interested in gardening, my Facebook feed is immediately swamped with gardening offers and gardening this and gardening that, most of which I have no interest in whatsoever. If you've got something that you want to make stand out, how are you going to get me to see it in what can be an algorithmic feed?

Hayley Williams, Keystone Marketing (21:16):
It's really tough actually, because we are all bombarded, aren't we? All the time with messages and we digital now, we are trapped and retargeted everywhere we go. And I think also as individuals and in society, we've become quite aware of when we're being marketed to as well. And so that does make it harder. So it means actually we have to work a little harder and we have to again, think differently. So I'll use an example of a campaign that we ran last year. We launched a volunteer portal for Cambridge here, which is matchmaking volunteers or individuals that are looking to volunteer with the opportunities in their local areas from nonprofits that need the support. And so again, we had that challenge that perhaps people weren't necessarily looking for that, so we needed to raise awareness and engage them. And we were mindful that our audience was likely to be digitally enabled, but spammed kind of everywhere.

(22:08):
And that's I guess one of our other golden rules. So I've talked about messaging that's relevant for the audiences, which are again, good marketing practises anyway. But the thing that we did there, and the thing that we'll always do from community engagement is say, okay, well where are those people? And we don't mean digitally, we mean as humans, where are those people? And so for that particular campaign, again, that's where the stakeholder engagement really came in. So we didn't do a massive amount of digital advertising. We didn't do a massive amount in terms of print, but we thought about where those individuals would be within their communities, and then we contacted them there. So for example, we did pop-up events at the local Tescos for instance. So as people were going in and getting their food and they were coming out, there was a stand there that would be able to talk about actually, have you heard of volunteer Cams?

(22:57):
And have you ever thought about volunteering? So putting our messages in the places where people would congregate as humans and not bombarding them with messages on their social media platforms and so on and so forth. So to try and evoke a conversation, and again, to plant the seed. And that works really well with councils as well with community engagement. So we've done quite a lot of work in the past on neighbourhood planning, which is where a particular council is looking at maybe a 25 year strategy for its town or its district. And again, we always say you have to go to where your community is. You can't expect them to come to you. And so pop-ups at train stations work really well there. And again, libraries. So actually trying to have conversations rather than just blanketing with marketing. And again, when people as individuals, a chance to create that human connection. More often than not, it's powerful and it's positive.

Kiran Kapur (host) (23:52):
It's really interesting because what you're talking about is almost the opposite to what we think we are supposed to be doing. So in marketing, I mean nearly all the conversations about digital and how do I create more digital content? And you are looking for areas where you can meet people face to face, which is not always easy.

Hayley Williams, Keystone Marketing (24:14):
No, no, absolutely. So again, that's why having really good stakeholders is really important as well. So actually if the more people that you can get behind what you're doing, and I suppose we are very lucky actually, Kiran, because the things that we are involved in, if it's council led or nonprofit-led, we are not selling, this is not selling widgets, grey widgets or anything like that. We're actually producing campaigns and messages that are for the greater good within those communities, either of benefit to them or to their local areas. So that does give us an advantage from that perspective. We're not trying to sell widgets per se, but it's always relationship first. So relationship first is what we think about. How can we create that connection? And then as I said earlier about striking that match and lighting a fire, the more of those conversations you have, the more the communities can then build these things themselves.

(25:05):
So we did an infrastructure project, which was redeveloping some river frontage. And again, rather than the council just saying we're undertaking development, we told the story over six months. And what was incredible is members of that community started. We didn't ask them to. They started to give us their photos of that space. Here's me on the mill steps 50 years ago with my grandparents, and I've always loved coming to this space, and it evoked people's own stories and feelings about that area on the back of what we were doing. So it can be very, very, as I said, very powerful and very positive. But you've got to think about that individual human first and what's important to them and what's going to help them really engage with this particular message.

Kiran Kapur (host) (25:50):
So when you are trying to change behaviours, I mean, one of the things that one always hears about is nudge theory. So there's this great psychographic theory that says that if I persuade people, you know suddenly, instead of being told you haven't bought your TV licence, you get a message saying 97% of people in your street have bought their TV licence. So you feel like you've got to be part of the herd. It's something you haven't mentioned. Is it something that you use or is it actually, if you understand your community, you don't need to do that sort of nudge theory.

Hayley Williams, Keystone Marketing (26:19):
I suppose some of what we do does involve it. Interestingly, one of my team here is doing quite a lot of research at the moment in neuromarketing. So sort of understanding what you see and what you read and what that makes you think and feel. So it definitely plays a part, but I think we've always come at it more instinctively than that. With the volunteer cams example I gave you where we had the volunteer portal that we were launching, we very much use that under the banner of Make Your Mark. So we talked about lots of people in your community are already making their mark by volunteering, and you can too. So absolutely, that does play a part, but again, we've got to think about where those messages are put in a way that's going to again, build the relationship and not to be seen as selling. But what I like about Nudge theory is it's a much more positive way, isn't it, of delivering a message. So as you say, 97% of people have invested in this, and we're all about being positive where we can. So I think there's definitely strength in that. Absolutely.

Kiran Kapur (host) (27:24):
Yeah, I think your positivity shines through. So before I let you go, I have to ask, how did Keystone Marketing come about? You founded it and you were running it. You said you've been around for 12 years. How did you get to where you are?

Hayley Williams, Keystone Marketing (27:37):
So I'll admit to you, I've worked in marketing roles for 25 years. I graduated with a communications degree 25 years ago, and I started in technology, pr, moved into product marketing and then started to get very, very curious about, actually, I don't want to sell big grey boxes anymore. I really want, I'm very much a relationship person. I really wanted to start making a difference in the charity and not-for-profit space. So I then started working at charities as head of external relations, and I'd always had in the back of my mind one day, one day, if I'm brave enough, I might set up on my own. But I have to admit I wasn't actually brave enough until I got made redundant. And it was at that point that I thought, well, now's my chance. I've got no excuses not to do this now. And so it's been a real journey of discovery over those 12 years, and I've absolutely loved it.

(28:26):
So yeah, that's how Keystone came about. And actually the name Keystone is quite intentional as well, because you might know that the Keystone is the central stone in an arch. And so when I was thinking about creating this consultancy, I kept coming back to the facts. It was just marketing at that point. But marketing is key actually. It's really key. And I know you'll feel that as well, actually really understanding an audience, thinking about a message and thinking about solving problems or creating opportunities is also important. So I kept coming back to marketing as key. So that's how Keystone came about, because I felt that without marketing within a business or a local authority or a nonprofit, actually, it's not quite as strong and things can fall and crumble around. So that's how Keystone came to be.

Kiran Kapur (host) (29:10):
So you've said cheerfully. Oh, I set it up 12 years ago, but you are quite a sizable organisation now. So how was that journey?

Hayley Williams, Keystone Marketing (29:18):
Yeah, so learning as I went, really, if I'm completely honest,

Kiran Kapur (host) (29:24):
I think we all do that.

Hayley Williams, Keystone Marketing (29:25):
Absolutely. So that would always be my recommendation actually to people who are looking at going on this path themselves is actually setting out your strategy and what you want to achieve right from the beginning. Because if you don't know what you want, you're never going to get it, are you? But I've always been one for the journey. And actually as the business has grown, I've just had the opportunity to do some work with some brilliant organisations, and that's enabled me to bring more people along. And I've got a great team here. So we've got in-house comms, creative, all the campaign management has done from here as well. And then we've got an incredible supplier network too. So I didn't necessarily realise I was going to become a business owner as well as a marketer. So my day is very much juggling between needing the strategy for some of our bigger campaigns, looking after my lovely team and going out and talking to more people about what we do. But I wouldn't change it at all. Then. I would probably be a very difficult employee now because I've got so used to beating my own drum and setting us on our path. But 25 years, I'm still absolutely in love with this sector, and I think it's a brilliant career for anyone that wants to try their hand at it. So many different avenues that everyone can go into. And yeah, I'll be here for another 25, hopefully.

Kiran Kapur (host) (30:43):
Fantastic. Hayley Williams, founder and MD of Keystone Marketing. Thank you very much for that insight into community engagement. That was really fascinating.