Clavelle from Technophobe to Digital Marketer. How I Survived The Curious Academy (And Actually Enjoyed It)

The Bit Where I Explain Why I'm Here

So, having barely survived midlife, teenagers, and the general chaos of motherhood, I did what seemed like a perfectly reasonable thing to do—I wrote a book about it. My survival tips? Train for a Half Ironman and flee to the other side of the world with my daughter. Anything to escape life, work, my husband and household chores. You know, routine basically.

I self-published my book on Amazon and then had that delightful moment of realisation, "Right, now what?" I knew I needed to explore other avenues to actually sell the thing. Minor problem—I was a complete and utter technophobe who broke out in hives at the mere mention of social media.

How I Got Talked into This

A friend gave me a five-star recommendation for The Curious Academy's digital marketing course. She knew exactly what she was doing, the sneaky thing. She was well aware that I was terrified of social media and thought, "You know what? Let's chuck her in at the deep end." And fair enough, really. I'd thrown myself into triathlon training and self-publishing the year before, so I suppose facing Instagram was the next logical step in my series of questionable life decisions.

What I Actually Wanted to Achieve (Besides Not Having a Panic Attack)

My goals going in were pretty straightforward,

• Set up a website that didn't look like it was built in 1985

• Get the confidence to write blogs and newsletters without second guessing every single word

• Actually, create accounts on LinkedIn, Facebook, and Instagram (I know, I know)

• Learn how to use these platforms without feeling like a complete dinosaur

Turns Out, Learning Can Be Rather Pleasant

From the off, The Curious Academy felt different. It's absolutely stuffed with tropical plants, there are happy, busy people everywhere, and there's this wonderful café with a barista who makes proper coffee. I mean, if you're going to face your technological fears, you might as well do it surrounded by plants and decent caffeine, right?

We all sat around a table, in a business suite set up for group learning, which sounds fancy but basically meant we could mess about with our websites while commiserating with each other. Since we were all in the same boat—trying to design websites without any clue as to what we were doing—the shared trauma was actually really helpful.

Louize's teaching style was brilliant. We'd learn something on the whiteboard, then immediately put it into practice. And she was always there to answer our questions. Even the ones we were convinced were absolutely stupid (though she kept insisting there's no such thing as a silly question, bless her).

The Stuff I Actually Learned

I picked up loads of practical skills:

• Competitor analysis (basically, being and nosey and looking at what everyone else was doing.

• SEO and why keywords are absolutely crucial

• Working out who my target audience actually is (spoiler - I got this spectacularly wrong at first)

• Creating customer avatars (which sounds weird but is actually dead useful)

• Using AI tools (who knew?)

• Google Search Console (still sounds intimidating, but I can use it now)

The main thing I learned? Digital marketing is all about connecting with your audience in the right place, at the right time, with the right message. Simple when you put it like that, isn't it?

The Lightbulb Moment That Changed Everything

Here's where it gets interesting. I'd been banging on about targeting menopausal women because that's what everyone talks about, isn't it? Current, popular, all over Google. Then we thought, "Right, empty nesters, that's the ticket!"

Nope.

Louize helped me realise I'd been barking up completely the wrong tree. My book is about doing your first triathlon. So, who's going to read it? Middle-aged women who are already casual athletes but want something more out of life. Women looking for a new challenge. Women who are, let's be honest, a bit like me.

This was my big "aha" moment. You absolutely have to create the correct avatars and genuinely understand your audience. Otherwise, all the other marketing stuff is completely pointless. You could be shouting into the void with perfect SEO, and it wouldn't matter a jot.

The Bits That Made Me Want to Hide Under the Desk

I'm not going to lie, there were challenges. Learning Squarespace made me want to throw my laptop out of the window on more than one occasion. Having the confidence to put myself out there and properly sing from the rooftops about my work? Terrifying. Learning how to sell myself without feeling like a complete geriatric? Even worse.

But then I thought, "Hang on, if everyone else is doing it, why can't I?" You've got to be in it to win it, haven't you?

Discovering I'm Not Completely Useless (Who Knew?)

Turns out, I had some hidden superpowers I didn't know about:

• I can actually connect with people properly online (without being cringey)

• I found some self-belief lurking under all that self-doubt

• I realized how much I'd actually achieved already and gave myself permission to be a bit proud of it

Pretty cool, really.

What You'd Actually Learn If You Signed Up

The course covers everything: creating compelling content, making websites show up on Google, running social media campaigns that don't make you want to crawl into a hole, and measuring whether any of it is actually working. You'll learn about AI tools, email marketing, pay-per-click advertising—the whole shebang.

Louize and the guest speakers actually know their stuff (years of experience, real results for actual businesses), and you create proper campaigns for real organizations. Plus, The Curious Academy is part of the Semrush for Education programme and the Canva not for profit program, which is pretty impressive.

What I'm Doing Now (Besides Being Smug)

Now I've got an actual marketing strategy and I'm exploring all sorts of things I'd never have considered before: giving talks, doing book signings, approaching magazines and radio stations, connecting with athletes for interviews and articles. I'm scheduling blogs and social media posts without having a small crisis about it.

I already had a successful business selling on Amazon, so I knew a bit about SEO and keywords. But this course took that basic knowledge and ramped it up about a thousand percent. I'm excited to see more people reading my website content, selling more books, and finding opportunities beyond Amazon.

My Advice (Take It or Leave It)

If you've got your own business and you're feeling a bit lost, do yourself a favour and sign up for this course. Honestly, just do it. You'll meet people who get it, you'll realise you're not the only one floundering about, and you'll walk away actually feeling equipped to sell yourself and your business.

Who'd have thought a self-confessed technophobe could not only survive but actually enjoy learning digital marketing? Certainly not me.

Fancy Supporting a Fellow Triathlete/Author?

If this story's made you laugh (or at least smile a bit), I'd absolutely love it if you grabbed a copy of my book. It's called Stronger Every Mile: Juggling Motherhood and Triathlon, and you can find it on Amazon Stronger Every Mile: A Mother’s Story of Juggling Family, Work and Triathlon Training: Amazon.co.uk: Ruskin, Libby: 9781068473500: Books

Here's to facing our fears, discovering we're more capable than we thought, and showing up in the digital world without wanting to hide under a rock. One post, one blog, one slightly terrifying Instagram story at a time.