UK-native Louise McFetridge has always had a passion for the English language and writing. She was also a huge fan of magazines as a teenager, which led her to get a journalism degree. While studying, Louise worked at some of the UK’s top magazines at the time, including New Women Magazine and Scarlet Magazine, where her love for writing truly blossomed.

Right after graduating, the 2008 recession hit and Louise decided to pursue a master’s in creative writing at the University of Roehampton. Louise continued freelancing while studying and later joined a startup where she was thrown into the world of digital marketing.

Louise has spent the last eight years working at Greenlight, a full-service digital and commerce agency in London, where she started as a copywriter and is now head of content and digital PR. Currently, Louise manages three teams: the copywriting team, digital PR team and strategy team.

During her time at Greenlight, Louise has been fortunate enough to work on various client portfolios and projects, including working with online retailer eBay to redefine their customer help and support pages, and Hurtigruten, a cruise company, to create a 360-degree video experience of their cruises.

Tune in for the interview as Louise chats with Kyler Canastra about her career journey, how her master’s in creative writing has helped her career and the importance of active listening when working with clients, plus loads more.

“Storytelling and narrative building are a huge part of both journalism and digital marketing.”

You can watch the full conversation in the video above or on YouTube, and listen to the podcast on Apple or Spotify.

Rapid-fire recs  

• Productivity hacks: 
  • Create a to-do list: “I like to create a to-do list at the end of the day that puts a pin in my thoughts to be able to try and switch off.”
  • Trello and Smartsheet: “We use things like Trello and Smartsheet and other resource management tools, which are hugely important.”

• Recommended reading: 
  • Keep up with competitors: “We host a regular round table for everyone from the team to bring a piece of content to share and discuss. It could be something good, something bad, an insight from the industry, an article, a blog, or a thought leadership piece. We then look at it from a creative or strategic perspective and look at its quality and how it’s performed. We also run it through Buzzsumo and Majestic to see its performance and assess it from a qualitative and quantitative perspective.”
  • Keep a pulse on content marketing and SEO updates from Content Marketing Institute, Contently, Copyblogger, SEO Moz, Search Engine Journal and Search Engine Roundtable.

• Source of inspiration: 
  • Calm: “It’s just about freeing your mind because it can get quite cluttered with everything that’s going on.”

Connect with Louise and Kyler on LinkedIn.

For more on building strong writing skills:

• The importance of quality content: What it is and why it matters for your career
• 12 lessons that content writers can learn from journalists
• The value of transferable creative skills in the marketing world: 10 inspiring stories
• How to write engaging copy for social media and why it’s important
• 6 ways to boost your creativity as a content writer
• How to write friendly emails that enhance your professional relationships

To read the full transcript, click on page number 2 below.