Why I chose CeMAP

I wasn’t sure how to start this post.

Some of you may have seen my post on my own personal website about why as a Digital Marketer I am studying for my CeMAP.

Perhaps a bit of back story.

November 21 – A new chapter

So in November 2021, I’d just come through a challenging period in my life.

My 13 year relationship had ended, I was 205 miles away from my son, and was due to start my new job as a Digital Marketing Executive on Monday 1st November.

Prior to this I had been working for myself as the founder & director of Boost Digital Media, a website design agency that was based in Torbay. A position I still hold today.

My plan, at the time, was to do the 4 weeks training and then return to Torbay to be closer to my son.

The Financial Services Sector

When I first started, I found the industry to be one of the most driest and, I hate using the word, boring industries I have ever come across.

What did it for me was when I found myself going round in circles in my head. Getting frustrated with myself, time and a lack of direction.

My routine would be wake up, go to work, come home frustrated at the world and its “injustices”, hit the gym or running trail, sleep and repeat.

I had to find more, believe I was more than just some washed up agency owner.

Where is this going?

By the Summer of 2025. I truly had, had enough, I wrote down a series of questions on my phone and needed to speak to someone above me.

My line manager, at this moment in time was on maternity leave, and I didn’t feel it right to burden the lady who had been brought in to cover her role.

So I went up a level to the Operations Director. Queue the ungodly nerves.

I struggled to get the words out, I’m not from a corporate background with well worded sentences, things tend to be just said as I find them in my head.

I asked a few questions one which stands out the most:

How can I improve myself to become better at my role and help with career progression? Where is this going?

The operations director reversed it and asked:

Where do you want the role to go?

And with that it was like a domino falling in my head.

A domino

After that conversation, I knew what I wanted, for the first time in 4 years I began to actually start looking into making the financial services industry my chosen industry.

This wasn’t a punishment, it was an opportunity to niche down. To actually stand for something rather than trying to be everything to everyone.

I thought, is there a space, a gap if you will, to be that marketer that combines the understanding of compliance and regulations with my 16 years of digital marketing experience.

Is there space to become the best digital marketer within financial services?

So I started reading, one article from The Intermediary, Mortgage Solutions, & Financial Reporter became my challenge every week.

Soon I was reading 2 a day, then 3. Before long I had signed up to a dozen financial services websites which send articles everyday to read through.

I subscribed to podcasts, looked for webinars, I began to immerse myself in the world of financial services.

I looked into how I could achieve becoming this combined compliance and regulation digital marketer and saw many of the brokers in my job with the words CeMAP, CeRER and other accolades.

I delved deeper, eventually finding the Certificate in Mortgage Advice and Practice (CeMAP) at Walbrook.

That was my way forward. I needed to know what the brokers know. I needed to understand their challenges. I wanted to know more.

CeMAP, you? Don’t be silly

That was my first thought. My second response to that question was, let’s test your theory.

I approached my Operations Director and asked to be put forward for my CeMAP and after going through the paper work, on the 1st October 2025. I officially began studying.

I also started considering what I’d do after I’d passed my CeMAP, would I want to practice. Residential? Commercial? Would you specialise? Buy-to-Lets, Remortgages, Second charge?

My brain became alive with questions, thoughts as I dove deeper into financial services.

I attended the Financial Reporters Marketing in Mortgages Summit in London. I joined the Chartered Institute of Marketers and became an Associate.

My why for doing the CeMAP is to become the marketer that combines compliance and regulation with digital marketing that helps financial firms grow.

It’s deeper than just wanting to the qualification.

I want to learn more about the financial services sector from a marketing standpoint and be the industries specialist.