Day in the life at Clever: Erin, Marketing

Curious what it’s like to work at Clever? Here’s a typical day in the life of Erin, our Content Marketing Manager.

Name: Erin Browner (she/her)

Team: Marketing

Role: Content Marketing Manager

Start date: April, 2019

Previous experience: Educents, Brit + Co, Education.com, Walmart.com

Favorite Clever tradition: Toss-up between the Annual White Elephant Book Exchange and volunteering at local organizations throughout the year.

Commute: Lovely

Each morning I arrive between 8:30 and 9:15. I usually walk or take the bus to work, and I always pass City Hall. I love love love my commute because there are often newly married couples who are taking wedding photos in front of City Hall. It’s just a sweet, romantic, dreamy part of my day and puts me in the best mood.

Once I get to the office, I grab coffee and cereal to eat breakfast at my desk. That’s when I check and respond to email, engage in our inbound Twitter activity from the last 24 hours, and check my favorite Slack channels, #mixtape (I love getting music recommendations) and #throwyourhandsupatme (our women’s chat).

Maybe once a month I grab coffee with a professional connection and arrive into the office around 10am.

Morning: Focus

Half of my weekday mornings are blocked for “focus time” because that’s when I get my best work done. During this time, I’ll be composing a blog post, editing marketing copy, or researching for an upcoming video project.

Because I spend so much time at my desk, I have set up a home away from home. My workspace has photos of my friends, a plant, and an essential oil diffuser.

Lunch: Two moods

Around 12:15, I head down to the kitchen for lunch. Unless it’s pasta day, in which case I’ll book it to the lunchroom right at noon. We have catered lunch each day, and I like to get creative with the salad bar. My favorite lunches usually include shrimp or fish.

If I’m feeling chatty, I’ll take my plate and a can of coconut water to the long lunch table where I’ll spark up a conversation with coworkers about films, their weekend plans, books we’re reading, or museums I still need to visit. If I’m not in the socializing mood, I’ll take my plate to the roof, power up the NYTimes app, and read up on current events.

I walk away from lunch feeling nourished – both physically and socially. 

Afternoon: Meetings

This is when most of my meetings happen. We’re still a lean team, so I offer weekly “copy office hours” to support my teammates on any copywriting or branded assets. It’s fun to jump on mini-projects! This allows me to collaborate with folks outside the marketing team and develop different skills like UX writing. 

The marketing team has a monthly workshop on Thursdays when we bring different projects and invite feedback or a critique from our team members. This meeting is a lot more productive and engaging than the typical weeklies I’ve had at other companies, which often turn into verbal updates of “here’s what I’m working on”  bla bla bla. My favorite activity to bring to workshop re-writing marketing copy to be more concise and delightful (one of my goals is to bring the “joy factor” to our marketing communications). I’ll lead the exercise by sharing email marketing examples from brands that I admire, like Creative Mornings or Social Print Studio.

Leave time: Off to class

I’ll leave between 5pm and 6pm, depending on my plans for the week and how I’m pacing against my projects. On Tuesdays I leave right at 5 to make it to my poetry class at San Francisco City College. I rarely leave past 6pm because I’ve got to make it home to feed dinner to my cats, Apple and Chicken Wing. I almost never bring my work laptop home and I rarely check Slack or email outside of office hours. 

Want to join Erin’s team? Explore open opportunities.