Sarah Henn lives off-grid. And not just ‘in a little village’, proper off-grid. The turn on a generator to power up a laptop kind of off-grid.
Add two outdoor-based businesses into the mix and it’s no surprise that digital marketing was not at the forefront of Sarah’s business plans.
Sarah has a teaching background and has been self-employed for eight years through her Miraclewood Outdoors business which runs forest school sessions for vulnerable children across Cornwall.
Sarah launched a second business; Helyk Homesteading in 2021 running courses on modern homesteading and rural crafts.
As the focus of her business is running outdoors sessions, and her courses were being delivered face-to-face, Sarah previously promoted her offerings through traditional offline media. This meant Sarah had limited experience of running or promoting her business online.
Sarah had previously looked at courses available through DPN but the timing never felt quite right. That was until Sarah saw the information about DPN’s inaugural Content Creation course which was developed as part of the ESF funded Business Clusters project.
Sarah attended DPN’s Content Creation training course in November 2021. The objective of participating was to arm Sarah with much needed skills and confidence to promote her two businesses to an online audience which was essential given the reduction in face-to-face delivery due to Covid-19 restrictions.
Sarah enjoyed the training and took away a wealth of knowledge. Sarah has been able to use the skills she learned on the course to write customer-facing course overviews, and image editing software to create images for her course content and infographics.
A key takeaway for Sarah has been the ability to add her lessons to an online course platform, Teachable, allowing her business to deliver courses online – complementing her traditional face-to-face offerings.
Sarah is going to use her new skills to further develop an online offering for her businesses. The course has allowed Sarah to feel more confident with promoting her business online and how to maximise her social media channels.
Sarah is also keen to explore further digital skills training either focusing on writing content or learning video editing skills.
About Sarah's businesses
Helyk Homesteading - https://www.facebook.com/HelykHomesteading
We run in person and virtual courses, video tutorials, and info linked to modern homesteading and rural crafts to help to support our project
Miraclewood Outdoor - https://www.facebook.com/miraclewood
Miraclewood is a social enterprise providing Forest School programmes to pre-schools, nurseries and schools in Cornwall.
