Introducing: Nikkie van Dillen
Nikkie has worked at Garden Connect since 2009. In the last couple of years, she has been the manager of the content marketing team. We’re happy to introduce you to her in this new blog!
Continuous improvement
“I’ve had various job positions at Garden Connect, and at the moment, it’s my honour to manage our successful content marketing team. We support garden centres and help them to keep their website up-to-date, so their website is an accurate representation of their product range and the activities in-store.
My main task is to make sure that the content marketeers can continue their work smoothly. If anything is going on, I try to find a solution or an alternative as soon as possible, so they can continue their work. Besides that, I’m here to make sure that everyone feels right in their position, and I try to make sure that we’re collaborating with other teams at Garden Connect as much as we can.”
Jack of all trades
“When I started working at Garden Connect in 2009, I was a sales and support employee. The company was so small, that I was a Jack of all trades. I worked for the portals and did sales, support and domain registrations. After that, I became an account manager in The Netherlands and Belgium and later in the North and Central part of the Netherlands.
After a while, I wanted to take the next step in my career, so I became the manager of Garden Connect The Netherlands. After growing more and more as a company, we created a full management team with managers for each department. That’s when I became the manager of the content marketing team.”
Her own webshop
After her studies in hotel and event management, Nikkie started working at the online marketing agency where she wrote her thesis. “I’ve also had my own webshop for a while. I wanted to know all the ins and outs of owning and managing a webshop: buying goods, webshop management, administration, marketing and every other step. That was the moment I knew I wanted to work in ‘the online world’.”
Always renewing
“Because of the continuous growth of Garden Connect, I’ve always had the possibility to grow along with the company. Any time I would start thinking ‘maybe this is the time to look for something else’ Edwin came up with a proposal for the next step I could take. It has never been boring, and always renewing and challenging in a very nice way. I am proud of my development and it feels very good to have my own team. We work very hard together to reach our goals. I always renew our ways of working and I try my best to connect suppliers, garden centres and consumers in new and surprising ways.”
An ugly website
“When I came for my job interview in 2009, the job position I applied for seemed amazing, but I didn’t like the website at all! My first thought was: ‘how can an online marketing agency have an old website like this?’. Because the atmosphere was very open during my job interview, I asked why this was the case and fortunately the development of a new website was on the schedule.”
Content for the whole garden industry
“I want everybody in the garden industry who needs content, to think about me or Garden Connect. I want to create the best content creations for the whole garden industry. Writing text, creating videos, creating special actions, or writing press releases and much more!”
Fun is the main ingredient
“I enjoy spending my time off with my daughters Casey and Lola. We go out and explore, organise a YES-day, or we find a reason to celebrate something. My partner supplies exclusive meat to the top restaurants in Amsterdam, so I enjoy going out for dinner with him to try delicious food at special locations.” The Beaucarnea is Nikkie her favourite plant: “I find the stem beautiful and impressive, it’s a real elephant’s foot!”
