As Sparro’s first full time hire, I’ve been part of the team for over a year, since it was just Morris, Cam and I in the living room of their Inner West terrace. We’re now a team of nine and I can confidently say that Sparro is a pretty great place to work.
From the day-to-day, to Sparro office culture and the sacred monthly lunch, here’s what it’s like to work at Sparro:
We’re a tight-knit group with common sense and common goals
The first thing you’ll notice when working at Sparro is that we all actually talk to each other. Everyone knows what they’re doing and who is the best person for the job when they need a hand.
In our offices, the creative and data team and directors all work within earshot of each other, which means there’s no sprawling and convoluted chain of command. Our team is focused on client goals and how best to achieve them rather than on our own role and how to move up the food chain.
At Sparro, your ideas are heard and you’re encouraged to run with them
When I joined Sparro, I wasn’t prepared for the fact that my ideas would be taken on board; I can’t think of an occasion where my voice wasn’t heard. I began my tenure at Sparro in a writing role, and found myself drawn to a lot of other components of digital marketing – like paid marketing, campaign management and content strategy. I’m regularly brought into pitches and asked for my ideas on work with a range of clients, which is something that would never happen after such a short time in a larger digital agency with clients of this calibre.
Sure, not all ideas are good ideas and the client certainly won’t take all of them on, but in a small agency like Sparro there’s a lot less bureaucracy to sift through before you hit gold.
Our team is growing in the right ways
Each year we’ve doubled in size, and with each new hire we bring in the right person for the right reasons, not just to fill seats. The Sparro team is streamlined and isn’t weighed down with unneeded ‘account executives’ or ‘marketing assistants’ who spend most of the day in a state of senior vs. junior limbo.
While there’s been big growth and the company has changed, we’ve stayed focused on the skills we each bring to the table and the company culture we’ve built. Our digital marketers, copywriters, data analysts and tech staff are all given room to specialise, learn, and develop within their own space, and the diverse work we take on allows for us to jump in and try our hand at something new.
There’s no time-wasting disguised as ‘admin’ or ‘internal WIPs’
We like to have a couple of morning meetings in the week, but we rarely spend our afternoons clearing our inboxes or revisiting a stack of email threads discussing each task to meticulous and unnecessary detail.
We’re all about refining a strong strategy and making sure everyone understands the client aims and what’s required. Without the rigmarole of executives and account managers to tip-toe around, we like to jump straight in and get started.
We have a broad range of skills and client backgrounds
The best thing about being part of such a diverse team is the huge depth of the knowledge you have to draw from. Whenever we have a strategy session, there’s something to gain from it and you rarely feel out of the loop when it comes to campaign benchmarks, reporting and industry trends.
Between us, we have experience working with businesses both big and small – from corporate, government, retail and eCommerce sites, to lead generation campaigns and large tourism brands.
We’re adaptable, just like the field we work in
Search engine optimisation, paid search marketing and online advertising are all young industries driven by new technologies and change, and it requires an adaptable agency to keep up. It doesn’t take long for Google to release a new feature of Adwords, for search marketing to incorporate a new algorithm or for a new remarketing tactic to be rolled out, and usually one of us is right there to try it out.
Sparro is a lean agency, so there’s plenty of dialogue between our team – whether it’s passing around an article we’ve found online or discussing a few hurdles we’ve crossed to make sure no one falls into the same trap, we stay updated and engaged with anything that’s thrown our way.
Our flexibility works in our favour
Starting work with Sparro, I had no idea who they were. I think that’s a large part of why we do so well. Big agencies are focused on a brand legacy, whereas small agencies can take risks, work quickly and try new things.
We don’t resist changing the tried-and-tested methods and we don’t play it safe. We actively seek out new ways of doings things and on occasion will even try and build our own. As a group of avid problem solvers, we use any resource in and out of our office to attend to the problem at hand.
We work hard, and smart, so there’s more time for burgers
No kidding, here at Sparro, we eat a lot of burgers, enjoy a Tuesday morning coffee or Friday afternoon beer together and Cher’s ‘Believe’ is our go-to 3:30 song. It’s like working from home, except you’re actually working and there’s someone to chat to; music on in the background, spreadsheets and documents open, google hangouts one-liners at the ready; just another day at Sparro HQ.
Sound too good to be true? Come work with Sparro and find out for yourself.