We take a look inside the business to highlight some of the marketing heroes that work together with clients to ensure they achieve the best results. Mark has recently joined us from brand side and brings a huge wealth of expertise and insights to Pure360. Read on to find out why Mark champions intelligent personalisation, gets inspired by a shorts brand and thinks brand usefulness amid COVID-19 might win more business in the long run.
1.) Please introduce yourself
My name is Mark, I work in the Customer Success team at Pure360. I’ve been involved in email marketing for around four and half years now, starting my marketing career at Future Publishing and most recently at tifgroup. At tifgroup I was tasked with managing the email marketing for all their brands (which ended up being around eight by the time I left), looking after their newsletters, teaching a university graduate the world of email marketing and my main focus was fine tuning their extensive list of automations. It was when working at tifgroup that I met the lovely guys at Pure360 and have now ended up moving to Brighton and just about managed to squeeze in my first day at the office before the country wide lockdown started.
2.) What have been the main challenges facing marketers in 2019?
From my perspective, there were two main challenges when it came to marketing in 2019.
The first of which was being able to effectively use the huge leaps in data collection and potential for automation in a way that the consumer didn’t necessarily notice. What I mean by that is doing clever personalisation on your website that inspires, instead of creating Big Brother panic. It became more important than ever to ask why you want to do something. Is it because you can do it, or because you need to do it? Those two things are very different. One leads to your consumers just becoming a segment, whereas the other puts your consumers first.There was also a huge amount of pressure to make customer journey easier and simpler than ever before. A perfect example of this would be Pluto Travel, who have absolutely mastered their customer journey. It gathers all the necessary information, while staying perfectly on brand and standing out in an incredibly busy market.
3.) What in marketing or business inspired you this year?
From a email marketing perspective, the folks over at Chubbies have been absolutely massive in 2019 for really pushing the envelope on what a brand can achieve in their emails.
Be it their super unusual subject lines, with my personal favourite being “kdkjwaogowkdhg” all the way through to their super unusual email content, such as a super blurry Black Friday offer where you couldn’t actually see any of the products. They are a brand who are really aware of what they bring to the table and are really making a name for themselves by truly thinking outside the box.
4.) What should marketers be focused on in 2020?
People’s attention spans seem to be getting shorter and shorter as the years go by. Which is why, in my opinion, 2020 will start a transition of less is more becoming a solid foundation on any new websites appearing. This is transferable to email marketing, website design, social media…you name it.
Making your emails, website and social media assets easy to consume with scannable content that can be digested fast is going to start working in your favour.
Think lots of white space, simpler images and blocks of colour to draw the eye.
5.) Who are your marketing heroes?
The folks over at Really Good Emails are an endless source of inspiration and Feedback Friday has become a staple of my Friday afternoon routine over the last year.
From a more personal side of things, David Lewis is a wonderfully talented master of SEO. He is the most hard working individual I’ve ever met and his fascination with learning new things will always inspire me.
6.) If you could give a tip to marketers at this time during Coronavirus, what would that be?
Use this time to think of the long-term goal, as long-term goals have never been more important than now. You may not have as many people visiting your website as you usually do, your shops may be shut at present, but once all this has passed consumers will think of the companies who helped them out during this time.
You may not be able to keep the children from drawing on the walls, but if you show that child’s parents a fun and new way to keep their little one entertained for hours on end (such as an online zoo tour that is happening near your office, for instance) then you may have gotten a return customer once this is all over.
You’ve got a time to really start creating a very engaged consumer base throughout this lockdown, and you do that by thinking outside the box and asking “how can I help?” instead of necessarily “how can I convert?”
7.) What piece of advice would you give to aspiring marketers?
Don’t be afraid to be wrong.
For some people, being wrong is the worst thing in the world, I know it was for me when I started off.
Being wrong allows you to learn new things quicker than any book or webinar will ever do.
No one who is deemed ‘successful’ in life got to that level by being correct all the time.
8.) You are sent to a desert island for 12 months – You can take 3 business books, 3 records and 1 luxury item – what would you take?
Books:-
- Buy.ology by Martin Lindstrom – the psychology behind why we purchase things is endlessly interesting.
- The Psychology Influence of Persuasion by Robert B. Cialdini – more wonderful marketing psychology
- Positoning by Al Ries and Jack Trout – despite being 20 years old, it is still as true today and every time you look at it you learn something new
Records:-
- Racecar is Racecar Backwards by Reuben – my favourite album by my favourite band
- Handbuilt By Robots by Newton Faulker – perfectly crafted acoustic goodness
- Lateralus by Tool – quite simply one of the best albums of all time, regardless of genre
1 luxury item:-
- A drum kit. Always wanted to properly learn to play the drums. I’m thinking there is no better time to give it a go than on a desert island.