Koozai Pioneer The KoozAcademy

We are delighted to be shortlisted for The Best New Business Culture Award at The UK Agency Awards, and we wanted to share with you why we believe we have been selected.

At Koozai, we pride ourselves on our relaxed culture, where we put our team and our clients at the heart of everything we do. Like other agencies, we have all the standard benefits, but we also like to do things for the team that really make an impact. Some of these benefits include:

• Onesie Days – 10 times a year you can just call in and say you are working from home
• Free Monthly Lunch – Once a month we buy the whole team lunch so we can all sit down and eat together
• Flexi Days – Start anywhere between 8am and 10am and finish between 4:30pm and 6:30pm
• Team Events – Four times a year we get together as a company with our biggest events taking place during the summer and at Christmas

But…

The biggest benefit we feel we offer the team is the invaluable training camps (AKA the KoozAcademy) that we put on throughout the year. This initiative has had a significant impact across the agency which is why we put ourselves forward for the award.

So, what is the KoozAcademy all about I hear you say? Let me tell you.

We have always invested heavily in sending the entire team out to conferences around the UK, and when you consider the overall cost of attending – from travel, tickets, accommodation plus time out the office; we were investing almost £70,000 a year!

Although the team were coming back from conferences with some new ideas to try, it is always going to be difficult to tailor talks to a series of different skillsets and knowledge levels. This got us thinking, and in 2014 we started to take a different approach. Rather than sending everyone in the team to all the different conferences, why not get the conference to come to us? We decided to hand-pick some of the best speakers and trainers in our industry and get them to come and spend time at Koozai HQ, instilling their knowledge in our team.

We ask the trainers to pitch at the exact level we need for each person in the team, and naturally get more out of doing it.

This doesn’t mean that we no longer attend conferences, because of course, we do. What we don’t do is send groups of people from the team – instead sending one or two who can then come back to the office and debrief the rest of us on any new skills they have learnt.

Introducing our KoozAcademy Tutors

Since the beginning of 2014 we have welcomed the following people to our head office to spend time with all departments, including the New Business Team, Content Team, Search Team and Management Team.

Paul Madden: Link Analysis Training

Paul was one of the first trainers we had back in 2014, where he delivered an inspiring session on link analysis. The team came away with a greater understanding of how to spot a bad link and the tools that they should and could be using when they are doing their research, analysis and removal. Paul is one of the founders of Kerboo and all the team at Koozai use the platform on a daily basis for link auditing (amongst other things). Since then, Paul has delivered a number of smaller sessions with the team which have been extremely beneficial.

Bas van den Beld: Social and Audience Training

When we announced that Bas was coming to Koozai, the team could not have been more excited. His time was spent with each department helping them to really understand audience profiling. He also hosted a group session on getting the whole Koozai team to work together to achieve great things. We are welcoming Bas back again this year too, but this time he is also the EU Search Personality of the Year 2015, so that is even more exciting!

Aleyda Solis: Mobile and International SEO Training and Mobile and App SEO Training

When you think of Mobile, App or International SEO, Aleyda’s name will always come up. After seeing her speak at countless events across the globe, there was no question that we wanted to get her in for a training day.

A year on and Aleyda has now delivered three outstanding KoozAcademy sessions and, in addition to that, has also spent close time with the team transferring her vast knowledge in the sector to us. We’re always very excited when Aleyda comes to visit and we’re looking forward to many more sessions with her.

Matthew Barby: Content Strategy Training and Advanced Link Building Strategies Training

Matthew Barby was at the top of our list when we were looking for someone to impart their content knowledge on our team.

Everybody loved his relaxed teaching style, and the room was buzzing with energy from start to finish. Covering all aspects of content strategy, research, and promotion, as well as some of the best tools to use, our team left armed with everything they needed to up their game even more.

Barry Adams: Technical SEO Training

Having Barry at Koozai was a lot of fun! The SEO team at Koozai have a varied level of skill when it comes to the technical side of SEO so this training camp was split into three sessions, allowing Barry to really invest the time needed to get everyone up to speed.

It has been amazing to see how much the confidence levels have increased since this workshop, and the results for our clients have followed suit!

Kelvin Newman: Advanced Link Acquisition Training

With Kelvin (UK Search Personality Award Winner) heading up the largest SEO conference in the UK (BrightonSEO), we wanted to get him on board to deliver a link acquisition workshop for the team. Kelvin came to us earlier this year and spent time with the entire company focusing heavily on how to uncover what your competitors are doing when it comes to link acquisition in order to do things better. We now invest a lot more time on competitor analysis for all our clients as a result.

Jackie Hole: Advanced PPC Training

Jackie Hole brings a wealth of knowledge when it comes to paid search. She has delivered multiple PPC training workshops across Europe and was awarded the EU Search Personality of the Year Award back in 2014!

We are all looking forward to having Jackie join us at Koozai HQ later this year.

Claire Thompson: Digital PR Training

As anyone who works in Content Marketing will know, there is a huge amount of PR involved in the process, which is why we enlisted the help of Claire Thompson to encourage the team really get to grips with what is involved in Digital PR. Claire has a wealth of knowledge in this subject and she delivered an excellent workshop. All the Content Team are now armed with the skills needed to pitch a story to journalists in a way that get results.

Dixon Jones: Using Majestic Training

Majestic has become one of the most used tools here at Koozai, so to have the man himself come and show us how to maximise its features was great for everyone who attended.

Dixon brings with him an enormous insight into the industry, so having him with us for the day was incredibly valuable and the team had a lot of key takeaways that they’ve been able to apply to their work since.

Russel McAthy: Attribution Modelling Training

Russel’s in-depth knowledge of attribution is something we love and so when we wanted someone to come and talk the team through this training, it had to be Russel.

Attribution modelling is incredibly important for quantifying a lot of the work we do here at Koozai, so having a clear understanding of how it works is vital. Russel talked the team through every aspect of attribution modelling earlier this year and we all got so much out of the day.

Jose Truchado: Myers Briggs Training

The session led by Jose Truchado was unlike anything we’ve ever done at a KoozAcademy, but we’re so glad that we did it.

Learning about our personality styles and how this can be applied to how we work with each other, and how we approach our tasks here, has been a great experience for all of us. The day was filled with interesting talks and tasks and finished with a race against time and each other. We left the session with huge smiles on our faces and filled with new knowledge that we’re ready to apply to our work.

Mel Carson: Digital PR and Personal Branding Training

We were really pleased when Mel agreed to come in and talk to the team about digital PR and personal branding. As the founder of a Seattle-based consultancy, his mission is to educate and inspire businesses and individuals, which we can confidently say that he did.

Our team were buzzing to learn from Mel, as we know how important having a PR arm is and we thoroughly enjoyed learning even more about this side of the industry.

Mark Johnstone: Content Marketing Process Training

Our content marketing team were over the moon when we announced we’d be spending two whole days with Mark Johnstone. With hundreds of links under his belt, content marketing expert Mark is set to cover everything that anyone would ever need to know about the content marketing process.

From brainstorming and proving the concept to promotion and strategy, including how best to seed out journalists and work with designers and developers, the team will have everything covered when it comes to their approaching new content.

Tim Stewart: CRO and UX Training and Excel Training

Here at Koozai, we’re passionate about CRO and UX, we believe in the users having the best experiences on websites and we like it when that traffic converts. So we’re really excited to have Tim come and speak about CRO and UX, sharing his knowledge with the team.

Tim is also doing Excel training for the team, as we think every skill is important and with how vast Excel can be, it’s important we all cover the basics as well as the more intricate formulas that Excel has.

How Has This Improved Our Agency?

Having such well-known independent industry experts come to the office to spend time with the team has created such a buzz! Everyone in the team is learning and developing their skills, which are then automatically transferred onto our clients’ campaigns. This coupled together means a happy team and happy clients.

Let’s hear from the students and tutors

To sum this up, we have asked a couple of KoozAcademy Tutors and Students to provide a testimonial, which helps to reiterate everything we have said.

Student Testimonials

Harry Gardiner – Content Marketing Executive @ Koozai

“The KoozAcademy Training Camps have helped me to develop and hone a wide range of skills both online and offline. The techniques I’ve learnt here, including public speaking, press outreach and client management, have helped expand my knowledge and propel my career; making me a stronger, more confident Content Marketer in the process.”

Ali Moghadam – Digital Marketing Executive @ Koozai

“The KoozAcademy Training Camps have been amazing learning experiences. Each training camp has an expert in their field with you, giving you their wealth of experience, teaching you the lessons they’ve learned and letting you get hands-on with tools, scripts and code.

No matter how much you think you know, there’s always someone out there who can teach you something new. Every single course to date has brought something new to the table for me. I’ve already learned so much, and I can’t wait for the next one!”

Tutor Testimonials

Bas van den Beld – Founder of State of Digital

“Training a group of professionals is not an easy task. Them having knowledge on their specific areas might mean that they are less open to new viewpoints. The team at Koozai however was different. They took the knowledge they already had and were eager to learn more and were open for different angles.

The team at Koozai was well educated, prepared, but also very open minded, which made for challenging and at the same time exciting sessions. Each member showed what I think is a great virtue: eagerness to learn more and become better.”

Paul Madden – Founder of Kerboo

“Training with the Koozai team was a pleasure; they were prepared, attentive and challenged me to deliver value for them.

Through subsequent training sessions and one on one workshops the team now represent some of the best trained customers we have and are utilising those skills to better serve their customers.”

What’s next for the KoozAcademy

The initiative has worked really well for us, so we will certainly be continuing with the KoozAcademy in the coming years. Our plan is to reach out to more independent industry experts to diversify the training camps we have held to date and incorporate new topics that we have not yet covered.

Additionally, we will still be attending all the leading conferences from across the UK (albeit with fewer team members) to ensure we are staying ahead of the game with all the latest techniques, updates and initiatives.

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