The Quiet Powerhouse Who Turns Messy Marketing Into Momentum
Some people talk about strategy.
Joanna Sharma lives it, breathes it, builds it and then quietly doubles your enquiries while you are still rewriting your tagline.
She is not flashy. She is not loud.
She is the senior digital leader you wish you had five years ago.
This article is all about her.
Who is Joanna, really?
On paper, Joanna is a seasoned digital marketing leader with 25 years experience. She has:
- Built data driven strategies for B2B brands
- Led long term digital transformations
- Specialised in CRM and automation platforms like HubSpot and GoHighLevel
- Delivered measurable lifts in enquiries, conversions and repeat business
In real life, she is the person who can:
- Look at your scattered campaigns and say, “Right, here is what actually matters”
- Translate tech speak to board speak without anyone needing a dictionary
- See the customer journey clearly, even when you are drowning in disconnected tools
She is the founding director of Drum Digital, and more recently has been stepping into fractional CMO and virtual Head of Marketing roles for growing businesses that want leadership without seven full time salaries.
Why “Drum Digital”?
Joanna did not just pull a name out of a hat.
“Drum” came from the visual of:
- Beating the drum for your message
- Calling in attention in a rhythmic, consistent way
- Creating momentum for your brand, not just noise
It also nods to her love of music and energy. A drum sets the tempo. It holds the rhythm. That is exactly what a solid marketing strategy does for a business.
Career highlights that actually mean something
This is where Joanna’s work speaks for itself. Under her leadership, Drum Digital has helped clients:
- Double a Sydney law firm’s monthly enquiries without spending more on ads
- Rescue a solar company’s sales conversions by tightening automation and follow up
- Lift product enquiries by more than 50 percent over a five year transformation for a power supply business
None of that is “we got more likes”.
It is serious, measurable growth.
Secret weapon: a customer service heart in a data driven world
One of the most powerful parts of Joanna’s story comes from something that looked small at the time.
During her early placement at CD Wow, she spent months in customer service.
Answering emails. Handling complaints. Listening to people when things went wrong.
That experience has never left her.
She saw:
- How brutal emails can sound compared to the actual human behind them
- How quickly things soften when you pick up the phone
- How a simple “We have got you, we will fix this” turns fury into loyalty
To this day, her favourite move when she gets a “spiky” email is not writing an essay back. She calls.
That mindset shapes how she builds strategy. For Joanna, customers are not “traffic” or “leads”. They are humans with expectations, frustrations and real lives.
Human connection in an AI heavy world
Joanna is very clear about AI. She uses it. She values it. She also knows its limits.
AI can:
- Help write first drafts
- Speed up content production
- Support research and brainstorming
AI cannot:
- Replace human emotional intelligence
- Understand your specific culture, politics and team dynamics
- Build trust with a frustrated client on the phone
In a world where anyone can churn out content, Joanna knows the brands that win are those that:
- Truly understand their customers
- Use tech to support relationships, not avoid them
- Make it easy, calm and clear to deal with them
Her work lives right in that sweet spot where data, automation and human connection all work together.
The way she thinks: strategy as quiet creativity
Ask Joanna if she is creative and she will probably point at her designer and laugh.
But watch her work and you see a different kind of creativity.
Her genius is in:
- Connecting the dots between audience, offer, timing and platform
- Seeing the full customer journey, not just the last click
- Turning chaotic systems into simple, logical flows
- Finding the shortest path between “we want this result” and “here is how we get there”
It is not about pretty pictures.
It is about elegant, effective thinking.
From agency owner to fractional CMO
For years, Joanna worked client side in marketing roles. Then she made the leap and founded Drum Digital.
She did this, by the way, the same year she had her first child. Then had her second child 14 months later. Business baby and two actual babies at once. No big deal.
Over more than a decade of running Drum Digital, she built:
- A senior team across strategy, design, development, ads and automation
- Systems that meant the business was not completely dependent on her every keystroke
- Long term relationships with B2B clients who valued depth, not quick hacks
Now she is stepping more intentionally into roles like:
- Fractional CMO
- Virtual Head of Marketing
- Embedded strategic partner
Especially for growing B2B organisations that:
- Are too big for “one marketing person who kind of does everything”
- Are not ready to hire an entire marketing department
- Need someone to connect all the moving pieces and lead the whole function
With Joanna, they get a strategist plus access to a full team, at a fraction of the cost of hiring six or seven individual specialists.
Strong boundaries, stronger leadership
Here is where things get refreshingly honest.
Joanna has always been a hard worker. She comes from a family of hard workers. The type who push, grind and keep going long after their nervous system is waving a little white flag.
She has also lived with anxiety since childhood. It spiked after she had kids. Instead of pretending everything was fine, she did something about it.
Her toolkit now includes:
- NLP and matrix therapies to work through long held patterns
- Acupuncture, which drops her into deep relaxation in a way nothing else does
- Nature walks with her two dogs as a daily non negotiable
- Chiropractic and neuro based support for her nervous system
She has consciously shifted from “turbo bunny who never stops” to someone who:
- Schedules slower weekends on purpose
- Reads a book in the garden without feeling guilty
- Says no to shiny opportunities that would wreck her family rhythm
Recently she turned down a huge opportunity that would have been brilliant for revenue on paper, but terrible for her life. Ten years ago she would have said yes instantly. Now she has the clarity to choose differently.
That growth shows up in her leadership. Her team does not just get a smart strategist. They get someone modelling boundaries, balance and actual self respect.
How she supports her team as humans, not just performers
Joanna runs a virtual team with people in different locations, including Cebu in the Philippines. When one of her team members was impacted by a major earthquake and lost people she knew, the focus was not deadlines.
It was:
- Are you safe
- What do you and your family need
- Take the time you need to be with them
It sounds simple. It is rare.
That kind of leadership matters. People do their best work when they know they are not just a billable hour.
If you are thinking about going out on your own, read this
Joanna’s advice to anyone wanting to start their own business is wonderfully blunt.
- Do not romanticise it
You will not be “free” from day one. In the early phase you often have less time, not more, because every client feels like a lifeline and you want to over deliver. - Do not try to do everything yourself
Joanna built infrastructure early, so the business did not rely solely on her. Plus she got help at home. Someone to help with dinner, kids, life. It was not a luxury. It was survival. - Build systems, not just hustle
If everything depends on you, you do not have a business. You have a very demanding job with a rude boss. Her approach has always been to build a structure that can carry weight over time. - Be patient
Real, sustainable business takes time. Those “overnight success” stories always skip the ten year chapter.
The lesson she wishes she had learnt sooner
If Joanna could send a note back to her younger self, it would say something like this:
Yes, big results matter.
No, they are not the only thing that matters.
Early in her career, success meant:
- Big clients
- Big projects
- Big numbers
Now, success also means:
- Working with people she genuinely likes
- Protecting her mental health and energy
- Doing work that feels meaningful, not just profitable
- Holding space for her kids’ needs and her own growth
When those elements line up, work stops feeling like a constant battle and starts feeling like service. You get to use your skills to build something real, without losing yourself in the process.
Why Joanna stands out
In a crowded digital world, Joanna is not shouting the loudest. She does not need to.
She stands out because she is:
- Deeply strategic and grounded in data
- Genuinely human in how she builds relationships
- Clear and calm in complex situations
- Brave enough to choose balance over burnout
- Committed to making a real difference for the businesses and people she works with
If you are a growing B2B organisation with tangled tech, scattered ideas and serious goals, Joanna is exactly the kind of partner you want leading your marketing.
She will not just help you be louder.
She will help you be sharper, smarter and more aligned with the people you actually serve.
