Jennifer Quigley-Jones, founder of Digital Voices

I am CEO and founder of Digital Voices. We build powerful YouTube creator campaigns with world leading, courageous brands. We love helping clients reach potential customers through videos people actually want to watch, rather than ads they want to skip. YouTube is the platform we primarily work with. It has over 2 billion monthly users and the average video view is 4 minutes. Our approach is very data-led so we use demographic data to ensure brands work with the right content creators to reach the right audience.

We also have a creative understanding of YouTube as a platform, meaning we guarantee organic views for every campaign. We’ve been fortunate to have an array of brilliant clients – this ranges from the Royal Air Force, Universal Music, the Post Office and booking.com to name just a couple.

What were you doing before Digital Voices?

I worked at YouTube for two years as a Partner Manager - the role was essentially helping YouTube creators grow their channels. It was a fascinating insight into the industry and gave me the understanding of the platform I needed. But I I got a bit bored. I knew that I wanted to be able to do something where I risked failing and got to help YouTube creators with the business side, so they could make money and build their own companies.

Getting involved in Tech is still a hot topic for women, what was the motivation for you?

Before working in tech, I specialised in International Development in the Middle East. Choosing to move to tech was a big jump! One of the best things about the tech industry is the pace at which you can learn and develop your career - so I decided to move to tech while I was young.

The most intimidating leap for me was moving from working in a tech company to running my own. I didn’t have any female entrepreneurial role models around me growing up and starting Digital Voices was born from a real moment of serendipity. I was travelling to Brussels for an event and sat next to a man who was emailing someone at YouTube with a lot of questions about organic growth on the platform - essentially my day job! At the end of the conversation he said I should come and train Starwood Hotels on YouTube. They became my first client. It was one of those chance moments. I knew I wanted to strike out and do something different but it wasn’t until that moment I realised I could do it myself. I went it for it and launched the business then with £500 of my own money and three years on, I am proud to say we have just made our first million.

What’s the single most important decision that you made that contributed to your business?

Being prepared to say no. When I started out, Digital Voices didn’t have one specialism and I said yes to any work linked to social media, which I think was partly due to a lack of confidence.

The business only took off only when I made myself uncomfortable and was prepared to take risks and say no to work I didn’t really want to work on. Key to this was the decision to specialise on YouTube, where I had particular expertise and I genuinely had a passion for supporting creators as entrepreneurs. I had to focus on one problem that I wanted to solve in order to build a useful and scalable company. Everything we do comes back to the problem we’re trying to solve: We want to help brands understand the power of YouTube creators and work with them in a fair and responsible way.

What’s the most common problem your customers approach you with?

When brands first approach us they often have a perception that Influencer Marketing is not measurable or trackable. Often they see spending on Influencers as a risk and they’re not sure how to measure returns, especially if previous campaigns have underperformed for them. I love when we show them exactly how we can guarantee organic results - whether that is views, engagements or sales - and measure the impact of our campaigns. Most of our revenue comes from repeat customers, so it’s good to know you’re doing something right!

What has been the most challenging thing so far?

My biggest challenge was actually learning to sell in my own way. I’d never worked in a sales role before, then had to pitch what Digital Voices does to clients - as a solo female founder. I hated the idea of traditional sales, where it is a zero sum game. For me, sales should be about problem solving together and building trust. Once I learned that, I built the whole company on a guaranteed results model, so that we can honestly believe in what we are building and work with clients to both achieve the same goal.

How important is company culture and what is your top tip to get it right?

Culture is hugely important and ensuring everyone feels part of the same mission and listened to and valued. The great thing about being a YouTube specialist agency is that everyone has slightly different viewing habits on YouTube, so we can all learn about new creators or formats from each other. That idea of everyone learning from each other is central to the culture at Digital Voices - good ideas can come from anywhere and I want every member of the team to feel valued. As a young(ish!) female founder, I know how demoralising it can be to be undermined or for people not to really listen - and I want to build a company where that never happens.

What has been your greatest accomplishment?

I guess it is cheesy, but building a team that is proud of the work we do every day. Everyone feels - I hope - like we stick to our principles (we never work with gambling or tobacco companies) and treat creators well. That means that every member of the team can sleep at night knowing they’ve done something positive and helped support these creators as entrepreneurs.

What advice would you give to female entrepreneurs starting out?

I would say to choose the problem you want to solve. When I was saying yes to every job linked to social media, I essentially devalued Digital Voices by making myself a freelancer. I didn’t respect my time, so why would clients?  It was liberating when I started saying no to work that wasn’t what I wanted the agency to do. Part of learning to say no was based on setting goals and not being afraid to fail. I used to be so worried about failure and what people would think. Then I sat myself down and thought - “Who are the people who are sad enough to notice if I fail and sit around judging my life? Why would their opinions ever mean anything to me?” It stopped being so scary then. Set an ambitious target and go after it.