About
I work where marketing strategy meets day-to-day delivery.
I am Saif Ahmed, a marketer based in Manchester. I help organisations connect marketing strategy with execution, so that marketing works better rather than simply growing in volume.
My grounding in marketing comes from my own brand. As founder of Meat by THB, a direct-to-consumer ecommerce business, I was responsible for understanding our customers, segmenting the market, building propositions for different groups and deciding where every pound of media went. It taught me that strategy and delivery cannot be separated.
At Global Rahmah Foundation I built and line-managed an in-house marketing team, led a brand refresh and led the redevelopment of the website with an external agency. At Action For Humanity, in a contract Campaign Manager role, I led strategy and delivery for integrated fundraising appeals, and for approximately the last four months acted as Marketing Manager.
More recently I have taken on project-based engagements with growing businesses, covering marketing operating models, planning and reporting automation.
I now work on a project basis, on my own and directly with each organisation's team, and I remain open to the right senior role, contract or permanent. Whatever the setting, I judge the work by whether marketing works better afterwards, not by how much more of it there is.
How I work
A few principles I come back to.
Start with the audience
Every plan, brief and process should make it easier to reach the people the work is for.
Make decisions visible
Teams move faster when it is clear who decides, what has been agreed and why.
Keep process light
Add structure where it protects quality, and remove it where it only slows people down.
Be honest about results
Credit the team, report what happened, and use it to make the next campaign better.
Perspectives
Practical thinking, shared on LinkedIn.
I post practical thinking on LinkedIn about marketing strategy, operations, campaign delivery and the structural issues that affect marketing performance.
Get in touch
Have a campaign, a role or a problem worth talking through?
Send me a short note with some context. I am happy to have an initial conversation and see whether I can help.