When I was designing my first ever business cards, before I had started the Parachute Digital business and was just operating as an independent digital marketing consultant in Sydney, I wanted my title to send a very clear message to anyone who was given my business card, I wanted it to represent my personal brand – as an individual as well as a professional, and what I came up with was, Digital Adventurer.

 

Shanelle Newton Clapham is a digital marketing consultant in Sydney

I am very happy with my strategic decision to list my services and a testimonial on my business cards. It has helped me a lot at business networking events.

I often attend business networking events and when the business card box comes around I look at the business cards and I’m so glad that I made the strategic decision to put some additional information on my digital marketing consulting business cards. I am very aware that most people have no idea what I do, so I wanted to at least give them some hints. But when I look at other people’s business cards, to decide if I want to take one, I’m often confonted with a business name that is non-descriptive and a title like “Director”. So how do I know what they do within a business that I have no idea even what industry it is in?

 

I know some people may scoff at my Digital Adventurer title, bullet points and testimonial on my cards but by and large I’ve had a good reaction to them. It was important for me to clearly demonstrate that I was not your average digital marketing consultant. If you wanted to work with me, you had to be prepared to go on a digital adventure. I want to work with businesses who want to try new things, who are prepared to test strategies and scenarios and take a few risks. As a Digital Adventurer I wanted my clients to understand that I offer something a little bit more exciting, more passionate, more adventurous and more risky than some of my digital marketing consultant competitors in Sydney.

 

Parachute Digital Marketing Consultants in Sydney - take their clients on an adventure

At Parachute Digital Marketing, we like to take our clients on a digital adventure, but we always make sure that we guide them in safely to a successful landing.

It was at the same time that I chose my business tagline. Again, before I had started my own business and even before I had concepted the name Parachute Digital (Marketing). That tagline also represented my personal and professional brand as a Digital Marketing Consultant. My tagline was, and still is, “Guiding you through the digital landscape”. While I may be a risk taking, passionate, Digital Adventurer, I still want to make sure that my clients feel in control and as though I am simply a guide, helping them land safely wherever they choose to venture in the digital world.

 

I wonder if perhaps I should change the tagline to “Guiding you safely through the digital landscape” but I don’t want to support the perception that some traditional marketers and business owners have that Digital Marketing is untested and a risky channel to spend their money, because its not. If anything, there is more data to support why digital marketing drives higher return on investment (ROI) than other marketing channels. But I’m not here to sell you on digital marketing and why you might need a digital marketing consultant – I just wanted to give you a little insight into myself and how Parachute Digital Marketing was born.

 

As my digital marketing consulting clients grew, I decided it was time to register a business name and think about getting serious. My business cards already had a silhouette of a dandelion, which I chose because again, I wanted to represent my personal brand and I love nature and the environment. I also thought the dandelion was a beautiful representation of the internet and the way we connect one website to the next through links. The visual is a very apt metaphor for what I promote as a digital marketing consultant.

The dandelion flower is actually called a parachute

The Dandelion florets are actually called a “parachute” and this is how Parachute Digital got its name (and because it worked with Digital Adventurer as a title and our existing tagline “Guiding you through the digital landscape”).

My designer friend Azelia, who had designed my original business cards, did some research and found that the florets or flower of the dandelion is called a “Parachute” and we thought this fit beautifully with my Digital Adventurer title and “Guiding you through the digital landscape” tagline. And thus, Parachute Digital was born.

Shanelle Newton Clapham, Digital Marketing Consultant in Sydney's, business card with a dandelion on it

Didn’t Azelia do a great job on my business cards?

 

I actually love telling the story of how it all came together because for me it illustrates how fate and destiny guide us. I really feel that I was meant to be my own boss but it had to come to me when I was ready for it and all of these things fell into place (along with some hard work) over a 12 month period. But I’m definitely not looking back.

 

If your business or someone else you know is looking for an adventurous but skillful digital marketing consultant in Sydney, please give them my phone number – 0406 691 030 and email address shanelle@parachutedigital.com.au