Yawn Marketing

About the participant

Sam Edwards is the Founder and Managing Director of Yawn Marketing – a marketing agency and consultancy based in Norwich. Yawn works across sectors from e-commerce to education and tourism to technology, and specialises in building strategies across Paid Media, Social Media, Email and SEO.

Sam was a participant of our first Creative East cohort in Norfolk, and had this to say about the programme…

Why did you sign up for Creative East?

“I joined Creative East to learn from some of the advisors and leading mentors that they’ve got, but also to learn from the peers in our networks – other people running creative businesses in the region. 

The main challenge that Creative East has helped me to address was actually to do with pitching the business and thinking about the business more strategically. We spend a lot of time as business owners working in the business, and this was an opportunity once a week to step outside, look at it strategically, and address what the challenges were and build a three to five-year plan. What are the milestones that we need to cross? What needs to change between now and the next stage? So it’s been really helpful for me from that point of view, and having access to experts who can talk me through each of those steps, has made a world of difference.

What was your favourite part of the programme?

Pitch practice was a part of the Creative East programme that I particularly looked forward to. Well, I don’t think ‘look forward to’ is the right phrase, because it could be a bit nerve-wracking, but it was an opportunity once a week for people on the course to pitch their businesses to each other and get some constructive feedback.

Having the opportunity to be put in the spotlight or to put yourself in the spotlight once a week and talk about your business as a business rather than just pitching services was a really valuable opportunity. And some of the feedback that I got there has definitely changed the way that I sell services now.

Thanks to Creative East, I’m feeling more confident about pitching my business and Future Planning.

What would you say to others looking to sign up?

If you’re thinking of joining Creative East, I would encourage you to talk to the team. Talk to the advisors, the people that run the programme because they’re the secret sauce and they can talk you through step-by-step what you’re getting from the programme. They might even be able to introduce you to people in your sector who have taken part.”

Please email creativeeast@uea.ac.uk with any questions.