How Birdcage Marketing offers purpose, freedom and fulfilment for its all-female team

When Maddy Avery ditched her day job to move to Mackay and start her own business, she made a conscious decision to prioritise what was important in her life – purpose, balance, family and a satisfying career.

While it sounds like Avery was chasing the elusive dream ‘to have it all’, by founding Birdcage Marketing in 2015, she has been able to do just that. The all-female agency offers genuine flexibility within the workplace – including flexible hours for working mothers, no emails on weekends or after-hours, and options of part-time hours and nine-day fortnights to promote balance.

Birdcage backs passion and purpose

By placing an emphasis on wellbeing, combined with a dedication to upskilling her team, and genuine flexibility within the workplace Birdcage Marketing’s has established a growing reputation as a powerhouse agency of healthy, happy, high-performing individuals who deliver results. Clients love them and the accolades also keep coming.

Birdcage Marketing was recently announced as a QLD finalist in the Accelerating Women category of Telstra’s Best of Business Awards, validating Avery’s efforts to deliver a meaningful experience for both her team and clients.

Choosing to actively support women in business has always mattered to the whole Birdcage Marketing team and, by being shortlisted in a category that aims to highlight the need to challenge exclusion and inequality to create meaningful and lasting equity for all Australians, Avery is thrilled to see that her support of adventurous, determined women has been validated.

“We have enjoyed success to rival digital agencies in major cities – and even worldwide – as we continue to grow our all-female agency, year-on-year, and serve some of Australia’s best lifestyle brands – many being women-led themselves,” Avery said.

Birdcage Marketing’s ability to achieve growth during the difficult impact of a global pandemic has culminated in the recent launch of a ‘Women-led Pro-Bono initiative’ – to deliver specialist marketing services to support the success of community-minded women-led organisations. The initiative is a potent reminder that success comes from both individual and professional resilience and becomes even better by building stronger, more cohesive communities.

Mission-led marketers

At its core, the Birdcage Marketing mission is to champion and challenge ambitious brands, with support for brand owners to launch and grow their dream businesses in a way that prioritises authenticity, connection, and passion for entrepreneurship.

In her own business, Avery walks the talk, with the development of a healthy, positive workplace culture that is about rejecting the old-school, ‘always on’ approach that has been so prevalent in marketing agency culture.

Having overcome her own health issues – including severe morning sickness while pregnant, as well as multiple auto-immune diseases – the shift away from the corporate agency mindset has taught Avery a lot about business…and herself. One key lesson she is keen to share with other business owners is to simply “get out of your own way”.

“Raise your self-worth so that you can achieve what you want to achieve,” says Avery. “You have to believe it’s possible.”

Her own determination to “show up to everything life has to offer” has been an integral part of her ongoing professional growth but Avery also knows that her success has not been an individual effort.

Hiring and building a truly collaborative team that shares goals, complements any weak spots, and elevates everyone involved to higher levels, says Avery, is the essential foundation for any sustainable brand growth – and should be a commitment that is consistent and continual.

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