Today’s Marketing Master is Christie Flanagan. Christie is the Manager of Marketing Programs and Operations at Fatwire.
How/why did you get into marketing?
While interning as an editorial assistant for a magazine during college, I found myself more and more interested in how the publication actually brought in new business. After all, you need to sell a page of advertising to justify having a page of editorial in the first place.
What campaign have you seen recently, that really blew you away?
The story of TOMS Shoes is pretty interesting. You have a small maker of casual shoes with a marketing strategy that hinges on generating publicity and building communities around their unusual business model – for every pair of shoes they sell, another pair is donated to a needy child. This approach has garnered a strong following among celebrities and ordinary consumers who are attracted to both the shoes’ laid back style and the company’s “conscious capitalism.” As the company’s sales have increased, so have their charitable efforts, which in turn broadens the appeal and reach of TOMS’ message even more.
What’s interesting in marketing right now?
Never before have marketers had so many tools at their disposal for executing increasingly targeted and personalized campaigns. And while buyers certainly benefit from more relevant marketing, I’ve recently been reminded through both personal and professional experience, that there is a point where a marketing message is so relevant that the recipients can’t help but be aware that they’ve been targeted because of their online behavior. This is not always a comfortable feeling. It will be interesting to see how marketers best leverage this wealth of knowledge in ways that facilitate sales and are truly helpful to potential buyers without raising privacy concerns.
What enewsletters, websites or blogs do you regularly read/visit to get ideas and inspiration?
I subscribe to a lot of RSS feeds. Some of my favorite feeds are the B2B Lead Generation Blog for practical marketing tips, Freakonomics Blog for questioning the conventionally held wisdom of just about any topic and Psychology Today for really interesting insights into human behavior.
If you were a font, which font would you be?
I don’t know. Haven’t taken the Facebook quiz. At work, I am Calibri by default.
Please share a nugget of your marketing wisdom for our readers.
At essence, a marketer’s responsibility is to facilitate the acquisition of profitable business for the company. Marketers who do this successfully will earn the respect of sales, finance and the C-Suite.
Posted in: Marketing Masters
This is some great info! Thank you for the post I also think that If you are looking to get referrals and leads to help jump start your business, business networking offers business professionals the opportunity to network with one another and generate business networking referrals to increase sales. Ultimately the person with the more powerful network has the opportunity to improve their quality of life. Also networking and involving yourself with other businesses is probably one of the cheapest and most affordable business practices you can do especially if you are also involving yourself in the online market.
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