We’re back with a new Isoline spotlight, this time with our Group Account Director, Claire Trévien. Since joining the agency in 2021, Claire has been pivotal in the company’s incredible growth. From optimising internal processes to driving creativity, she is one of Isoline’s not-so-secret weapons. We had to ask her more about her unusual career journey, and how she makes sure to inject creativity into her campaigns.
Can you share your career journey and how it led you to becoming an account director at a B2B marketing agency?
My career journey isn’t exactly a straightforward one to summarise, I went from a teenager dreaming of becoming an actress, to an academic working on the French Revolution and the complete works of Voltaire, to a tech B2B marketer!
As a child I wanted the chance to try out every business there was, which is why I settled on acting, as my reasoning was that I could experience all the jobs I’d be pretending to do. So, from the start I was deeply curious about multiple industries and understanding different points of views, a character trait that serves me well in tech B2B content marketing.
The biggest jump was leaving academia for a brand new career in marketing, and I was lucky enough that a SaaS startup took a chance on me at the time. It was very much a baptism by fire working with them as I was their one-woman marketing team, with no training or formal experience. Ultimately, it was also deeply rewarding, and a breath of fresh air after the slow pace of academia, so I knew I’d made the right decision.
Fast forward to a few years of marketing both in-house and freelance and I found out that a role was available at Isoline. Fortunately, I was unaware of the job title until after I’d accepted the role or I probably would have psyched myself out of applying!
How did your academic background help you in your marketing career?
There’s plenty of positives to be taken from academia: due diligence, a love of processes, backing up arguments with data and research. Marketing in general can get a bit wild with fake stats, chaotic environments, and priorities shifting based on the whims of the C-suite. I think my background makes me ideally suited to parachute into a tangle of knots and make it work out. As Marie Kondo says “I love mess!”
What has been your career highlight so far?
I know industry awards are a bit of a vanity exercise, but they also have great timing!
In my second year of marketing, for example, I was shortlisted as ‘Marketer of the Year’ at the CIM Marketing Excellence Awards. This was a real boost to my self-esteem at a much needed time, and it also encouraged me to branch out into freelancing afterwards.
But to be honest, nothing has made me prouder than the awards we’ve been collecting at Isoline Communications, as they’re the culmination of hard team work. Most recently we’ve been shortlisted for Best Small Agency of the Year at the UK Content Awards, keep your fingers crossed for us!
What’s your favourite campaign that you’ve worked on, and why?
Tough choice, so let me pick one from 2024 and 2023.
From this year, I absolutely adored working on the ice age campaign with Verdant Technologies, which resulted in this video in English, and then translated into Spanish for a Mexican audience. It really helped them cut through the noise in their outreach to prospects.
If I were to pick from last year, then it would be the huge revamp of the bics.com website, which also led to a deluge of industry awards. Many marketers understandably find B2B website revamps daunting but I’ve come to love them. It’s all about harmonising developers, subject matter experts, designers, sales, and writers to get to a result that satisfies everyone.
What do you believe are the key elements of compelling copy?
There are many and they obviously depend on the end-game of the copy, but elements I look for are: clarity over cleverness and substance over surface. If you nail these basics, it’s much easier to then get creative with titles, hooks, and approach and attract the attention of the right audience.
What word or expression should be banned from all B2B copy?
My current bugbears at the moment are blogs that begin with a variant of “In the fast-paced world of X, technology is constantly evolving….” It makes me immediately switch off. I’d love folk relying on this to challenge themselves to start differently.
AI-fuelled copy has also made me allergic to words such as “delve” and “realm”. I find myself craving much simpler language in reaction.
How do you incorporate your artistic sensibilities into your strategic role at Isoline?
That’s a great question! For context, I’m an avid painter outside of work, and previously a poet for a decade.
The joy I find in painting comes from experimenting, trying out new things, and adopting an “eternal amateur” mindset as much as I can. Because, once you upgrade yourself from amateur to professional, you add mental barriers and a fear of failure.
I try to add that approach to our creative brainstorms in particular, and to my client counselling. It’s very easy for B2B marketing to fall in the trap of everyone imitating their competitors and becoming a snake that eats its own tail.
I want to keep encouraging a spirit of newness and exploration for our clients whether through language, content types, approaches. It’s the only way to combat bland and AI-generated content with a message that truly resonates.
What trends do you see emerging in the B2B digital marketing space?
Podcasts are making a huge comeback after a bout of post-pandemic fatigue. With the rise of AI, we’ve noticed a bigger appetite for expert-led authentic content, so it absolutely makes sense. Likewise, webinars are becoming cool again, especially in more intimate and exclusive settings.
Real-life events are also in full bloom now, with trade shows especially effective. But with the recent economic downturn, marketers have to work harder than ever to prove the investment is worth it.
What makes Isoline Communications unique?
It’s pretty unique for a tech B2B content agency to encourage creativity to the extent that we do. We also go above and beyond in terms of communicating and collaborating with our client, we really do become an extension of our client’s team, and I wouldn’t want it any other way.
If you want to learn more about Isoline, please email us at hello@isolinecomms.com
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