Meet Michelle Tolhurst, your virtual marketing assistant
Hi, my name is Michelle Tolhurst, your virtual marketing assistant and I am the owner and director of Creative Desk Pty Ltd.
Creative Desk was established in December 2015, to provide support for small businesses as a virtual marketing assistant. I love running my own business and having the flexibility to work from home. There is never a dull moment working in partnership with so many fantastic businesses. In just over 6 years I have worked with more than 90 clients, supporting their businesses on both short-term and long-term contracts.
I am based in Glenbrook NSW in the beautiful lower Blue Mountains, however, I can assist businesses located right across Australia.
I have over 20 years of experience specialising in marketing communications for service-based businesses. I’ve worked in all sizes of companies from small businesses to multi-national corporations.
I’m a self-starter who takes pride in my work. I demonstrate initiative and work well under pressure. I’m confident working in both teams or individually.
Career Background
EDUCATION:
Bachelor of Arts, Western Sydney University – Studies in Marketing, Computing with a focus on design, Public Relations, Communications and Business
KEY COMPUTER SKILLS:
Microsoft Office including Word, Excel, Powerpoint – Advanced User;
Adobe Creative Suite including Acrobat, InDesign, Illustrator, Photoshop and Dreamweaver;
Email Campaign Software experience, Active Campaign, Ontraport, MailChimp, MailerLite, Campaign Monitor, Marketo, Exact Target;
CRM Experience – Ontraport, Active Campaign, Simplero, Salesforce, Microsoft CRM, and Pardot;
Other skills, HTML experience, WordPress, Google Analytics, Google Adwords, Survey Monkey, Fluid Surveys, Thinkific, LearnDash, Asana, Zoom, Acuity
EMPLOYMENT HISTORY
For nearly four years I was a Marketing Executive at SAI Global, in the training side of the business. I was responsible for planning and executing marketing campaigns for lead generation, these included email marketing, social media, print advertising, customer communications, sales collateral, direct mail, trade events and marketing automation campaigns. With a good computer background, I was the go-to person for CRM database management and website maintenance. With a background in events, I also managed a range of events including conferences, training and webinars.
For nearly 6 years, I was the Marketing Manager at Advancing Food Safety, a food safety training company. This was a small business and I was in the marketing department, managing the full marketing function. As with any small business you wear many hats, I implemented a new company website, a new CRM database system, designed and wrote all company promotional material plus was the onsite computer guru. A major part of my role was the event management of a major annual industry conference, including speakers, travel, trade exhibition, gala dinners, workshops, sponsorship and marketing for the event.
For over 4 years, I was the Marketing Coordinator at State Super Financial Services Australia. I refer to this role as my first real corporate job, I had great exposure to the marketing function within a business and worked with a number of functions in the department. I assisted with the production and development of company literature and promotional material, the company’s advertising program, maintaining the company’s Internet and Intranet sites and coordinating various events including training sessions and seminars.
