Hayley Logan, Marketing Coordinator across the multi-brand award-winning Romantica portfolio, travels more than two hours a day and says it is absolutely worth it
6.30am My alarm goes off and my husband and I rush to get ready for a new day’s work, with our cat Misty followinag us around until she is fed. Once she’s content with her bowl of food, we have a quick cup of tea, grab our lunches from the fridge and hit
the road.
7.30am My commute to work is not the quickest, as we live in the countryside. A standard drive for me is one hour and 15 minutes – a shock to most people as a standard commute is much shorter. But the journey is worth it to live in such a wonderful place. The drive is also a great time for me to organise my thoughts and to make a rough to-do list for the day.
8:45am I arrive at the office. Top priority is to put the kettle on and make everyone a drink to start off the day. We have a general catch and any meetings are scheduled.
9am Once I have caught up with the team, my first job is to check my emails. As I manage all brand marketing and websites for the company, I can receive emails from a range of different people.
With all questions, queries and requests answered, I can then tackle the day’s to-do list. My role is so varied – there really isn’t a typical day for a marketing manager – which is why I love my job. There are lots of challenges, creative projects and events to plan so I can use my organisational skills and creativity to the max every day.
10am Once all of my emails are answered, I work on our social media platforms. Answering any questions, helping brides find their nearest stockist, sharing content, scheduling posts, working alongside our designers, taking photos of brand new gowns hot off the cutting-room table and designing post layouts.
Social media is such a big part of our digital marketing and it’s essential for us to keep up to date. Once this is all under control and organised for the week, I go into a meeting with the Creative Director and design team to discuss exciting developments for our brands that need to be shared and/or developed into a marketing campaign over the next few months.
11.30am This is the perfect time for a quick cuppa before I move on to the next project for the day. Our designers have been busy developing our new 2020 A/W collections and it is my job to arrange the photoshoots. This is one of my favourite tasks, as I love creating the imagery for each brand in our portfolio. It gives me the opportunity to bring our designs to life with a beautiful model and in a stunning location.
Our new collections will be photographed shortly, but as I like to be organised, I started planning the shoots back in September laying the ground work, researching locations, sourcing the perfect models and creating mood boards for each brand.
As we move closer to the deadline, I finalise dates with our chosen locations, arrange castings, option models and start to source props for the shoots – which includes jewellery, flowers and shoes. Alongside this I also liaise with our photographer, make up artist and hairstylist to ensure everything is on track for each shoot.
Organisation is key. There are always several projects on the go to keep me super busy and always next season to think about as well as shows and events.
If I have any time before lunch, I start to layout a few blog posts for our website. There are lots of topics to write about in the bridal industry, which keeps me busy, but my favourite topic is trends. As the seasons change and new and exciting trends are forecast, I work alongside our design team to write about the hottest looks and it is the perfect opportunity to shout about our new gowns.
1pm Time for lunch, usually soup, salad or a sandwich, which is completely dependant on the time of year and if I have time to make a healthy salad!
2pm By now, I have had lunch, caught up on emails, scheduled social media posts, written a blog or two, caught up with the design team, had a meeting with the Directors to discuss new collection photoshoots and liaised with the Sales Director to ensure our sales team have everything they need to promote our brands.
The next job is to update our websites, with the launch of our 2020 S/S collections in September new imagery needed to be added to our websites. Our Media Bank website was updated before the launch in September so all of our stockists and media contacts can download the imagery for their marketing needs, editorial posts or blogs.
For the main website we don’t add the new imagery until around four weeks before deliveries start to go into the stores so brides can get excited and contact their nearest boutique for more details.
Working with our latest editorial imagery, I go through them and pick out the best pictures for each page of the website. Once I have selected the images, they need to be resized and formatted to go on the website. Then they are uploaded to the back end of the website and each page is checked and reviewed. I usually change the layouts a few times before I am happy; I am a perfectionist after all!
4pm Once I am satisfied with the website updates, I check my emails again to see if anything needs to be responded to urgently and move on to designing artwork for new brochures and magazine layouts.
The brochure for our new Olivia Rose Bridal collection is currently in the design stages and I have been working on the layout, writing content and arranging the images to get it ready to go to print. Alongside this, a new magazine double-page spread is due and it is a great opportunity to promote our award-winning Symphony gown, which picked up the ‘Wedding Dress Of The Year’ title at The Bridal Buyer Awards 2019 in September and we are so proud! I usually draft the layout and then revisit it with fresh eyes in the morning, if I am not happy I will tweak the design until it is perfect.
5pm Time to go home. Everything is finished for the day and the office closes down for the evening.
6.30pm Once I get home, and if my husband doesn’t have fire training, we will catch up about our day and decide what to make for dinner. The kettle goes on, Misty has a cuddle and then we crack on with cooking. We try to make dinner together but for the majority of the week my husband is home first so he organises a delicious meal for us, which is great!
In the summer months we love to go for a walk after dinner. We are surrounded by beautiful countryside and a stunning coastline so we like to make the most of it. Our favourite walk is around the Valley Of Rocks, which is a stone’s throw from my front door. Sometimes we meet up with my mum and take her dogs around with us before the sunset.
As the nights close in and the temperature drops, we tend to curl up on the sofa and watch a movie, that is if my husband hasn’t got a run scheduled as part of his marathon training.
Meanwhile, I periodically check social media platforms to make sure the posts for the day have been successful, glance to see if there are any pressing emails that need my attention, have a quick half an hour of yoga and our cat has her mad five minutes running around the house before falling asleep on the radiator.
10.30pm Lights out and some sleep before it all starts again with a totally different work day ahead to look forward to!
