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In this episode of InTechnology, Camille gets into AI and automation in digital marketing with co-host John Gildea, Investment Director at Intel Capital, and guest Vivek Sharma, Co-Founder and CEO at Movable Ink. They talk about how AI has changed digital marketing over the decades, the mechanics of AI marketing, the industries and customers Movable Ink is working with, the possibilities beyond email marketing with AI and automation, Movable's platforms Studio and Da Vinci, how their AI models build intelligence, the influence of AI on real-time offers and supply chain responses, customer concerns about AI in digital marketing, and more. Learn more about Intel Capital: https://www.intelcapital.com/ The views and opinions expressed are those of the guests and author and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of Intel Corporation.
Episode Summary In this OnBase episode, Chris Moody talks with Tyler Pleiss, Associate Director of Growth Marketing at Movable Ink, about transforming Account-Based Marketing (ABM) from a tactical tool into a strategic go-to-market approach. Tyler shares insights on aligning ABM with enterprise goals, fostering cross-functional collaboration, and leveraging AI for efficiency. He emphasizes the importance of targeted personalization, strategic account prioritization, and focusing on measurable outcomes to drive impactful results. About the guest Tyler Pleiss is a seasoned marketing professional with extensive experience in account-based marketing (ABM) and growth marketing strategies for B2B organizations. Currently serving as Associate Director of Growth Marketing at Movable Ink and a member of the Executive Council at ForgeX, Tyler also consults on marketing strategies at TACK and founded The Pleiss is Right, LLC., a platform dedicated to ABM insights. Previously, Tyler held key roles at Clari, where the focus was on establishing growth marketing for the Strategic Industries segment, and at Terminus, leading strategic ABM initiatives. Additional experience includes positions at Quantum Workplace, Signal 88 Security, and Courtside Marketing. Tyler earned a Master's degree in Management with a Marketing focus from Bellevue University and a Bachelor's degree in Business/Sports Management from Buena Vista University. Connect with Tyler Pleiss Key takeaways - ABM as a Strategic Lever: Reframe ABM as a strategic tool driving measurable business goals like upsells and new market expansion. - Aligning Enterprise Teams: Connect ABM strategies to top company objectives, ensuring alignment across marketing, sales, and SDRs. - Data-Driven Insights: Use analytics to target high-value accounts with the greatest revenue potential. - Cross-Functional Collaboration: Strengthen team alignment through structured communication and project management. - AI for Efficiency: Leverage AI tools to streamline account research, content creation, and campaign execution. - Human-Centric Personalization: Maintain deep personalization by focusing on fewer, high-priority accounts. - Smart Budget Decisions: Double down on marketing channels proven to contribute to pipeline and revenue. - Team Buy-In: Engage sales leaders and SDRs to embed ABM into shared revenue strategies. - Balanced Automation: Use automation for efficiency while preserving authentic, human-led interactions. - Long-Term Relationships: Build lasting connections with key accounts for sustained growth. - Iterative Improvement: Continuously refine ABM tactics using team feedback and performance data. - Targeted Personalization: Scale personalization efforts strategically without sacrificing quality or impact. Quotes On Shifting ABM to Strategy: "ABM isn't just a marketing tactic—it's a strategic framework that ties directly to enterprise goals like growth and expansion." On GTM Alignment: "Success in ABM comes when marketing, sales, and SDR teams rally around shared objectives and prioritize the right accounts together." On Data Utilization: "Data-driven insights aren't optional; they're the backbone of any effective ABM program, helping us focus on accounts that truly matter." Connect with Tyler Pleiss | Follow us on LinkedIn | Website
Stop the Sales Drop Podcast with Kristina Jaramillo and Eric Gruber
Send us a textLast time on the ABM Done Right Podcast, when he was at Clari, Tyler Pleiss shared why he was taking a 1:1 ABM approach to penetrate 3 markets that were years behind when it came to RevOps. Now, Tyler is at Movable Ink and is shifting the perspective on ABM and the triangle. Listen to the podcast to see how the ABM triangle is no longer relevant.
In this special episode of Scrappy ABM, host Mason Cosby joins Morgan J. Ingram on the Marketing Mayhem show to discuss practical Account-Based Marketing (ABM) strategies and lessons learned from past campaigns. Alongside guests Tyler Pleiss and Corrina Owens, they dive into the do's and don'ts of ABM, share real-life campaign breakdowns, and offer valuable tips for marketers looking to implement or improve their ABM efforts.Best Moments:(01:05) The premise of the ABM Showdown: Marketing revolution or outdated relic?(05:41) Defining Account-Based Marketing (ABM)(09:03) Do's and don'ts of ABM(19:02) Breakdown of real ABM campaigns(32:02) Determining when sales should engage in ABM(41:35) The "Roast Session": Sharing unsuccessful ABM campaigns and lessons learned(51:48) Top ABM tips from each guest(54:40) Working with content marketing teams for ABMGuest Bios:Morgan J. Ingram is the founder of Amp Creative and the moderator of Marketing Mayhem, an edutainment show that mixes humor with learning. He brings together top industry professionals to review what works and what doesn't in marketing.Tyler Pleiss is the Associate Director of Growth Marketing at Movable Ink, specializing in ABM tactics and building account-based go-to-market strategies.Corrina Owens is a marketing professional with extensive experience in ABM strategies. In her spare time, Corrina teaches aerial silks.Mason Cosby is the host of Scrappy ABM podcast and an ABM expert. He runs various ABM-related content platforms, including a podcast, newsletter, website, and masterclass in partnership with UserGems.About Marketing Mayhem:Marketing Mayhem is an edutainment show moderated by Morgan J. Ingram, founder of Amp Creative. The show mixes humor with learning by reviewing what works and what doesn't in marketing, featuring top industry experts who tackle different areas of marketing in each episode.
Today's interview revisits and finalises the series of podcast conversations that I had with various folks whilst at Pegaworld earlier this. This episode is a combo affair and features a conversation with Tara DeZao, Director of Product Marketing, AdTech and MarTech, at Pega. It is then swiftly followed by a chat that I had with Simon Thorpe, Director - Global Product Marketing - Customer Service & Sales Automation, at Pega, who is then joined partway through the conversation by James Dodkins, a friend of the podcast and CX Evangelist, at Pega. Fun and games! Our conversations cover my guests' highlights from the event, their perspective on the current state of play in marketing, personalization, customer service, customer experience and the impact of Gen AI on all of the above, amongst a bunch of other things. This interview follows on from my recent interview – Print-era thinking is holding personalization efforts back – Interview with Vivek Sharma on Movable Ink – and is number 515 in the series of interviews with authors and business leaders who are doing great things, providing valuable insights, helping businesses innovate and delivering great service and experience to both their customers and their employees. Disclaimer: I partnered with Pega to conduct interviews and provide my perspective on PegaWorld iNspire 2024.
Today's interview is with Vivek Sharma, Chief Executive Officer & Co-Founder of Movable Ink, which empowers marketers with scalable, omnichannel personalization through data activation and AI decisioning. Vivek joins me today to talk about their recent 2024 Audience of One research report, content creation as a key bottleneck in personalisation efforts, how automation through the increased use of artificial intelligence is permitting marketers to take a more strategy-focused approach, how that is impacting metrics like engagement rates, campaign RoI and improved commercial returns and some of the ethical concerns marketers have with new technology. This interview follows on from my recent interview – Agents view agent-assist technology as more important than a competitive salary – Interview with Gopi Polavarapu at Kore.ai – and is number 514 in the series of interviews with authors and business leaders who are doing great things, providing valuable insights, helping businesses innovate and delivering great service and experience to both their customers and their employees. NOTE: Today's episode is sponsored by Hubspot, who have built an AI-powered customer platform with all the software, integrations, and resources you need to connect your marketing, sales, and customer service. It's all very cool so do check them out at HubSpot.com.
In this episode, we dive deep into the journey of Alison Lindland, the CMO of Movable Ink. Alison shares how she joined the company as its 14th employee and helped transform it into a unicorn business. From navigating the challenges of a startup to leading innovative marketing strategies, Alison discusses her approach to scaling customer success and her philosophy on leadership. Discover how Movable Ink leverages AI-powered content to drive personalized marketing experiences, including collaborations with big brands like Spotify and Dunkin' Donuts. Whether you're interested in startup growth, the evolution of MarTech, or leadership insights, this conversation offers valuable takeaways for marketers at all levels. Tune in to hear Alison's thoughts on building a strong culture, the role of CMOs as change agents, and the strategic decisions that have defined her career.
In this episode of "Scrappy ABM," host Mason Cosby is joined by Tyler Pleiss, the Growth Marketing Manager at Movable Ink. Together, they dive into Tyler's practical approach to building and scaling an account-based marketing (ABM) program from the ground up, without relying on expensive technology platforms.=================================Best Moments:(02:05) Tyler introduces Movable Ink, an email platform that provides personalization for B2C brands(03:19) Defining account-based go-to-market and the key pillars of the strategy(06:01) Using first and third-party data to prioritize accounts and align messaging(10:48) The process of creating the targeted account list, involving cross-functional stakeholders(16:04) The importance of collaboration in developing messaging and content for ABM campaigns(19:00) Measuring success through KPIs and a framework for reporting on progress(24:21) A specific win-back strategy being implemented, leveraging internal data insights=================================Guest Bio:Tyler Pleiss is the Growth Marketing Manager at Movable Ink, an email personalization platform for B2C brands. He is responsible for building and scaling the company's account-based marketing program from the ground up. Tyler is known for his insightful newsletter on ABM strategies and approaches, which offers practical advice and real-world experiences.
On this episode, Alison Lindland, the CMO of Movable Ink, discusses the impact of AI on marketing teams and she emphasizes the need for teams to adapt to the changing landscape and support their clients throughout their journeys. Alison also shares insights on the company's customer advisory board and the value of collaborating with clients to drive product innovation.Key Takeaways:How Movable Inc. utilizes AI technology to optimize campaigns and explore new categories for individual recipientsHow AI is changing the work and structure of marketing teams, requiring them to adapt and support their clients through change management.Why employee experience is a key factor in delivering a great customer experienceWhy marketing leaders need to be comfortable with change if they want to succeed in the AI-driven landscape.–How can you bring all your disconnected, enterprise data into Salesforce to deliver a 360-degree view of your customer? The answer is Data Cloud. With more than 200 implementations completed globally, the leading Salesforce experts from Professional Services can help you realize value quickly with Data Cloud. To learn more, visit salesforce.com/products/data to learn more. Mission.org is a media studio producing content alongside world-class clients. Learn more at mission.org.
This episode features an interview with Alison Lindland, CMO at Movable Ink, a SaaS MarTech platform that empowers marketers with scalable, omni-channel personalization through data activation and AI decisioning. In this episode, Alison discusses the importance of a customer advisory board and of personally spending time with your customers. She also talks about the flywheel they have built through their unique strategy team and how they incorporate customer insights back into their content. Key Takeaways:It is worth investing in a customer advisory board and building a community there. The insights and feedback that you gain can be fed back into the company to improve the product and create authentic marketing. Movable Ink has built a unique strategy team, made up of former clients that interact closely with their senior clients and bring back insights to their teams. This team has become one of the most sought after resources in the company. Having the outbound function sit under the CMO bring them closer to other marketing functions and creates alignment. Quote: ”I think you really can never spend too much time with your customers. So making sure that you are out there personally talking to your clients. I'd say is really just the number one piece and, I onboard every new member to our cab and it's a considerable investment of time, but it's my absolute favorite thing to do. And in every single conversation that I have, there's always some light bulb moment opportunity that comes out of it. Some piece of feedback that goes back to the account team. Some personal connection we didn't know we had. It's just always something great or an opportunity for them to speak at Think Summit, just something terrific comes from it. So I'd say making sure that you're investing in building those relationships and just laying those tracks.”Episode Timestamps:*(09:16) The Trust Tree: ABM playbook as a team sport *(16: 53) The Playbook: THe value of a customer advisory board*(29:27) The Dust Up: Turning disappointment into a big opportunity *(32:14) Quick Hits: Alison's Quick hits Sponsor:Pipeline Visionaries is brought to you by Qualified.com, the #1 Conversational Marketing platform for companies that use Salesforce and the secret weapon for pipeline pros. The world's leading enterprise brands trust Qualified to instantly meet with buyers, right on their website, and maximize sales pipeline. Visit Qualified.com to learn more.Links:Connect with Ian on LinkedInConnect with Alison on LinkedInLearn more about Movable InkLearn more about Caspian Studios
VP, Product Marketing at Movable Ink, Anjali Yakkudi, discusses the overlap between artificial intelligence and product marketing. In this episode of the MarTech Podcast, Anjali delves into taking advantage of the excitement of artificial intelligence, but not getting caught up in the hype, how artificial intelligence gives value to customers within the product, and a host of other interesting topics. Show NotesConnect With: Anjali Yakkudi: Website // LinkedInThe MarTech Podcast: Email // LinkedIn // TwitterBenjamin Shapiro: Website // LinkedIn // TwitterSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.
Revenue Generator Podcast: Sales + Marketing + Product + Customer Success = Revenue Growth
VP, Product Marketing at Movable Ink, Anjali Yakkudi, discusses the overlap between artificial intelligence and product marketing. In this episode of the MarTech Podcast, Anjali delves into taking advantage of the excitement of artificial intelligence, but not getting caught up in the hype, how artificial intelligence gives value to customers within the product, and a host of other interesting topics. Show NotesConnect With: Anjali Yakkudi: Website // LinkedInThe MarTech Podcast: Email // LinkedIn // TwitterBenjamin Shapiro: Website // LinkedIn // TwitterSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.
VP, Product Marketing at Movable Ink, Anjali Yakkudi, the overlap between artificial intelligence and product marketing. In this episode of the MarTech Podcast, Anjali discusses the ins and out of powerful marketing, delving into marketing challenges around innovative products, how o use one's product as an advantage in marketing, and a host of other topics. Show NotesConnect With: Anjali Yakkudi: Website // LinkedInThe MarTech Podcast: Email // LinkedIn // TwitterBenjamin Shapiro: Website // LinkedIn // TwitterSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.
Revenue Generator Podcast: Sales + Marketing + Product + Customer Success = Revenue Growth
VP, Product Marketing at Movable Ink, Anjali Yakkudi, the overlap between artificial intelligence and product marketing. In this episode of the MarTech Podcast, Anjali discusses the ins and out of powerful marketing, delving into marketing challenges around innovative products, how o use one's product as an advantage in marketing, and a host of other topics. Show NotesConnect With: Anjali Yakkudi: Website // LinkedInThe MarTech Podcast: Email // LinkedIn // TwitterBenjamin Shapiro: Website // LinkedIn // TwitterSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.
In the realm of entrepreneurship, there exists a unique breed of individuals whose journey embodies the essence of resilience, adaptation, and unwavering determination. Vivek Sharma, the visionary behind Movable Ink, epitomizes this spirit of tenacity and innovation.
In this episode of Product Marketing Life, host Mark Assini speaks with Erica Dingman, Senior Product Marketing Manager at Movable Ink, about the difference between vision selling and product selling.Key takeawaysWhy vision selling takes a more transformational approachHow to convince customers to adopt a new way of workingBuilding an incremental pathway to sophistication for each customerMaintaining a core narrative while customizing for each clientThe increasing value of face-to-face marketing and human connections
Cisco's $28 billion acquisition of Splunk highlights their commitment to advancing AI-driven security. Pryon's $100 million funding round underscores the growing importance of virtual assistants in various industries. Movable Ink's Universal Data Activation empowers marketers with personalized AI strategies. OpenAI's DALL-E 3 brings enhanced capabilities for creative expression. Google's AI chatbot Bard gains user-friendly features and broader integration. Microsoft's Copilot AI, set to launch on Nov 1, promises innovative document-related tasks and real-time highlights. Infosys' collaboration with NVIDIA signifies a major step in AI training and solutions. Key Takeaway Cisco is acquiring Splunk for $28 billion to bolster AI-enabled security and observability.AI startup Pryon secured $100 million in funding, specializing in virtual assistants for businesses.Movable Ink's Universal Data Activation feature enables highly personalized AI marketing experiences using real-time data sources.OpenAI's DALL-E 3 introduces new capabilities, including prompt creation via ChatGPT and improved contextual understanding.Quotes:"Cisco Systems announced its intention to acquire Splunk in a takeover agreement, valued at $28 billion.""Pryon, an AI startup specializing in virtual assistants for businesses, secured $100 million in its latest funding round.""Vivek Sharma, CEO & co-founder of Movable Ink said that by tapping into sources of real-time data, clients can unlock more sophisticated and higher ROI for AI marketing use cases.""OpenAI announced the third version of its generative AI visual art platform DALL-E, which now lets users create prompts through ChatGPT and includes more safety features.""Microsoft unveiled its latest innovation: Copilot AI for Microsoft 365 products. Microsoft announced that the new Copilot will be generally available for enterprise customers starting Nov 1."____More from Edge of AI
Today's TMM webinar doesn't start from a place of 'look at AI'.It starts from a place of 'this stuff is big and interesting, now - how can we as marketing humans actually use it to improve our lives?', exploring:
We're happy to be back in 2023 and ready to continue the season. We met Kelly Haggard last summer at ANA's Email Evolution conference and knew we had to get her on the show. She's working on an integration between Synchrony and Movable Ink and is leading email innovation on her team. Hear how they're utilizing send time optimization for their new integration and what it takes to keep your team informed on email best practices. Email's Not Dead is a podcast about how we communicate with each other and the broader world through modern technologies. Email isn't dead, but it could be if we don't change how we think about it. Hosts Jonathan Torres and Eric Trinidad dive into the email underworld and come back out with a distinctive look at the way developers and marketers send email.
Adam Stambleck, the President and Chief Client Officer of Movable Ink, adds his page to the Marketing Playbook. Hear how to find a professional role model, provide incredible customer service, start a side hustle, work with AI (Artificial Intelligence), and develop an incredible work ethic. Connect with Adam on LinkedIn
In the fifth of our Marketing Futures episodes that we're producing in partnership with SAP, we look at the challenges facing marketers during an economic downturn and how they need to adapt their marketing strategies accordingly. How can marketing leaders continue to be effective whilst managing with smaller budgets? Find out why authenticity, personalization, engaging content creation and truly understanding your customers are the tools you'll need to survive and thrive. Our guests were: - Doug Zarkin, CMO at Pearle Vision - Connor Wells, Head of Marketing & Brand at Heath Skincare - Kyle Schroeder, VP, Global Partnerships at Movable Ink
On this episode of the Partner Channel Podcast, host Tori Barlow had a chance to talk with Kyle Schroeder, VP of Global Partnerships at Movable Ink. They discuss the steps to take when working towards upward mobility in your career and the skills you need to be a better fit for leadership positions.
Had the opportunity to work in the treasury department at American Express arrived 6 months earlier, there's a chance that John Herman may never have landed in a CFO office. “Treasury was an area that I was fascinated by,” remembers Herman, who—after having spent a decade at American Express—was given a “package” in 2009 when the financial crisis mercilessly bore down on the card services giant. However, in April of 2010, Herman punted the Amex treasury opportunity in order to accept an FP&A position at Yodle, an online marketing company that was generating roughly $50 million in annual revenue. “I decided that I wanted to work in an organization where I could make an impact, and I felt that it was time to take a risk in my career,” recalls Herman, who would report directly to Yodle's CFO and for the next several months be “a department of one.” “There was this opportunity to build out my team and take on new roles and learn really quickly,” recounts Herman. Along the way, Yodle would make multiple acquisitions and grow to more than $200 million in annual sales before being acquired by Web.com in early 2016. Herman had steadily advanced upward and eventually into the CFO office, where he ultimately led the due diligence and oversaw the sale process for the Web.com sale. “It ultimately came down to the fact that it was the right time to sell,” comments Herman, who within 6 months of the Yodle sale closing garnered his second CFO appointment at early-stage SaaS developer Movable Ink. Six years later, Movable Ink has surpassed the $100 million mark in annual recurring revenue and was recently valued at $1.3 billion—joining a select class of marketing technology brands. Asked whether he had ever contemplated becoming a CFO during the first half of his career, Herman replies, “I definitely didn't grow up saying, ‘Someday, I want to be a CFO'—it's really been a journeyman's trip to where I have now arrived.” –Jack Sweeney
Join host Adam Michalski as he interviews Jeremy Seltzer, Chief Revenue Officer at Movable Ink. They discuss how Movable Ink leverages their partner network to create a sticky ecosystem and act as multipliers for their clients.Topics Covered:Jeremy's background and journey to SaaSContent PersonalizationThe Intersection of Partnerships & SalesBest Practices for Involving Your Sales TeamThe Power of Partner ReferencesPartner with Movable Ink:Partners CareersResourcesJeremy's TwitterSponsors:Partnership LeadersPartneredSubscribe at www.partneredpodcast.com.Interested in joining the podcast? Reach out to hello@partnered.com.
Vivek Sharma is the Co- Founder and CEO of Moveable Ink. Moveable Ink has created a marketing solution that helps brands work data into personalized content. Basically, they help businesses leverage their data to help customize content and marketing messages. And it works. Companies who switch from a one-size-fits-all-marketing-model to customization tend to see large increases in engagement. Vivek started his career as an engineer & sales, making him a double treat as a startup founder. During our chat we discussed the ins and outs of Moveable Ink, some important lessons Vivek's learned while growing the company and adding so many employees, a startup horror story about when a change of Gmail's policies almost made the product obsolete, his perspective on capitalizing a startup and much more. Show Links Follow us on Twitter: http://twitter.com/movableink (@movableink), http://twitter.com/mpd (@mpd) Guest Links: https://movableink.com/ (Moveable Ink) Podcast Links: http://mpd.me (Website), https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCua7T3uyg6IQeSbYyNKT_Iw (YouTube), https://twitter.com/mpd (Twitter), https://www.facebook.com/innovationwithmpd (Facebook), https://www.linkedin.com/company/innovationwithmpd (LinkedIn)
Today I am thrilled to be sharing a full episode from my all new Conversations with CommerceNext podcast featuring Jon Mandell, Senior Vice President of Global Membership Marketing and Commerce with WW. WW started their digital transformation long before the pandemic demanded brands to keep up with the great acceleration of eCommerce, and on this episode along with my co-host Scott Silverman we get an inside look at the process and people behind WW's great leap forward and how the groundwork laid in the past is preparing them for future success.Jon walks us through the overall process and strategy behind the transition, and how the pandemic changed the game. We ask Jon about his career, what he looks for when building a resilient team, and advice that he would give his past self.To discover career opportunities with WW click here. I launched the Conversations with CommerceNext podcast with my U.S. based partners to meet the top practitioners and thought leaders in the DTC & eCommerce marketing space, and explore both their tradecraft and share the learnings from their career journeys. Let's listen in now as Scott kicks off our conversation. Thanks for tuning into this episode of Conversations with CommerceNext. Please follow us on Apple, Spotify, Amazon Music or your favorite podcast platform where we'll be sharing career advice and marketing strategies from eCommerce and digital marketing leaders at retailers and direct-to-consumer brands each and every episode. CommerceNext is a community, event series and conference for marketers at retail and direct-to-consumer brands. Through our online forums, interviews, webinars, summits and other in-person events, we harness the collective wisdom of our community to help marketers grow their businesses and advance their careers. Join CommerceNext events to meet other industry leaders and learn the latest ecommerce and marketing strategies. You can find upcoming events at CommerceNext.com Jon MandellSVP, CXO, C-suite Leader → Brand Transformation Catalyst → Customer Engagement StrategistBuilding, leading, and optimizing customer-centric organizations to drive growth and revenue has been the hallmark of my career. I leverage strategy, technology, operational excellence, and innovation to shape unique customer experiences that deliver value and engender customer engagement, loyalty, and retention. I excel in identifying business growth opportunities in organizations and developing them into impactful business drivers to increase revenue, income and previously untapped value.My experience spans executive leadership roles (transformations, growth initiatives, M&A, turnarounds, and integrations) with leading public companies (WW & 1-800-Flowers.com), co-founder/COO/MD of 2 technology startups, operations and general management roles, and an early career with AT&T Wireless. As a leader, I am best known for expanding the vision for what is possible and forming cohesive, motivated teams to drive organizational growth boldly and systematically from the ground up.CAREER MILESTONES
Welcome to the Conversations with CommerceNext podcast, I'm your host Michael LeBlanc, and this podcast is brought to you in conjunction with CommerceNext and presented by Bloomreach. WW started their digital transformation long before the pandemic demanded brands to keep up with the great acceleration of eCommerce. Today on the Conversations with CommerceNext podcast, get an inside look at the process and people behind WW's great leap forward and how the groundwork laid in the past is preparing them for future success.Scott Silverman and I talk to one of the great minds behind this major moment in WW history - Jon Mandell, Senior Vice President of Global Membership Marketing and Commerce.Jon walks us through the overall process and strategy behind the transition, and how the pandemic changed the game. We ask Jon about his career, what he looks for when building a resilient team, and advice that he would give his past self.To discover career opportunities with WW click here. Thanks for tuning into this episode of Conversations with CommerceNext. Please follow us on Apple, Spotify, Amazon Music or your favorite podcast platform where we'll be sharing career advice and marketing strategies from eCommerce and digital marketing leaders at retailers and direct-to-consumer brands each and every episode. CommerceNext is a community, event series and conference for marketers at retail and direct-to-consumer brands. Through our online forums, interviews, webinars, summits and other in-person events, we harness the collective wisdom of our community to help marketers grow their businesses and advance their careers. Join CommerceNext events to meet other industry leaders and learn the latest ecommerce and marketing strategies. You can find upcoming events at CommerceNext.com Jon MandellSVP, CXO, C-suite Leader → Brand Transformation Catalyst → Customer Engagement StrategistBuilding, leading, and optimizing customer-centric organizations to drive growth and revenue has been the hallmark of my career. I leverage strategy, technology, operational excellence, and innovation to shape unique customer experiences that deliver value and engender customer engagement, loyalty, and retention. I excel in identifying business growth opportunities in organizations and developing them into impactful business drivers to increase revenue, income and previously untapped value.My experience spans executive leadership roles (transformations, growth initiatives, M&A, turnarounds, and integrations) with leading public companies (WW & 1-800-Flowers.com), co-founder/COO/MD of 2 technology startups, operations and general management roles, and an early career with AT&T Wireless. As a leader, I am best known for expanding the vision for what is possible and forming cohesive, motivated teams to drive organizational growth boldly and systematically from the ground up.CAREER MILESTONES
This time around hosts Komal Helyer and Gavin Laugenie interview Adam Farquharson from Movable Ink. They tap into the topic of how brands can ramp up real-time personalisation, why not everyone is using it and testing to optimize performance during the tenth instalment of the 'My Dog Ate My Email' podcast. You'll discover: Why personalisation is so important How to send at the right time for your individual recipients Advances In technology and the advantages of real-time data
Thanks for joining us for the third episode of EmailGeeks at Home Drinking Coffee season 6. This week we're joined by special guest Vivek Sharma, CEO and Co-Founder of Movable Ink, an absolute powerhouse in the email space with their hyper-personalized email content experience. Feel free to grab a cup of coffee, tea, water, or whatever else floats your boat and join in on the fun! https://audiencepoint.com/blog/ https://www.linkedin.com/company/audiencepoint https://email-connect.com/ https://www.listfit.com/
Are you driving performance and impact through digital marketing?Vivek Sharma, co-founder and CEO of Movable Ink, shares how you increase your ROI from your marketing efforts.
Meghann Misiak is the Founder of "The Path To President's Club" and is a sales strategist for B2B sales teams. She formerly was in sales and leadership positions at Movable Ink, NewsCred, Dominion Payroll Services and Netchex. In this episode, Meghann and I talk cover: The early days of her sales career Starting her own venture during the pandemic What it means to shorten the path to President's Club and how we can do it as salespeople And much more... This podcast is brought to you by Gong.io, the #1 Revenue Intelligence Company, and Postal.io, A Curated Experience Marketing Platform that Helps You Cut Through the Noise. If you enjoy the podcast, would you please consider leaving a short review on Apple Podcasts? It takes less than 60 seconds, and it really makes a difference in helping to grow this show and find the best guests possible for you. Follow The Podcast: Apple/Spotify: Millennial Sales Twitter: @TommyTahoe Instagram: @TommyTahoe YouTube: TommyTahoe Website: Millennialmomentum.net
Meghann Misiak is the Founder of "The Path To President's Club" and is a sales strategist for B2B sales teams. She formerly was in sales and leadership positions at Movable Ink, NewsCred, Dominion Payroll Services and Netchex. In this episode, Meghann and I talk cover: The early days of her sales career Starting her own venture during the pandemic What it means to shorten the path to President's Club and how we can do it as salespeople And much more... This podcast is brought to you by Gong.io, the #1 Revenue Intelligence Company, and Postal.io, A Curated Experience Marketing Platform that Helps You Cut Through the Noise. If you enjoy the podcast, would you please consider leaving a short review on Apple Podcasts? It takes less than 60 seconds, and it really makes a difference in helping to grow this show and find the best guests possible for you. Follow The Podcast: Apple/Spotify: Millennial Sales Twitter: @TommyTahoe Instagram: @TommyTahoe YouTube: TommyTahoe Website: Millennialmomentum.net
In this episode of Coherent Thoughts, host James Glover speaks with Rachel Cowlishaw from Movable Ink about digital transformation in retail. James and Rachel talk about her perspective from her time at Neiman Marcus, common misconceptions surrounding email strategy, and effectively using creatives in your personalized emails.Prior to joining Movable Ink, Rachel worked on the client-side in a variety of marketing and CRM roles within the luxury retail space. She joined Movable Ink from Neiman Marcus, where she oversaw personalization and CRM marketing across email, SMS, and mobile. Most recently, she led a cross-functional agile team, focusing on A/B testing and scaling personalized customer experiences and omnichannel journeys across stores and online. In addition she played an integral role in the enhancement of their martec stack, consolidating customer data and integrating vendor partners into a CDP. Rachel now oversees North America retail accounts for Movable Ink’s Strategy Team.Learn more at movableink.com.
Techish is back with a brand new episode! Abadesi and Michael discuss the fallout from the Basecamp's situation. They also break down: - Bill and Melinda Gates divorce - The mother of all bubbles - Dogecoin - Black Panther 2 'Wakanda Forever - Gentrified startups ————————————————————— Sponsors: Flatiron Health is hiring: flatiron.com/careers/open-positions/ Movable Ink is hiring: ————————————————————— www.pocitjobs.com for roles for POC in tech www.hustlecrew.co for talks and training to make your company more inclusive ————————————————————— Extra Reading: https://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/films/news/black-panther-2-wakanda-forever-b1841305.html https://www.cnbc.com/2021/05/04/dogecoins-price-is-rising-ahead-of-elon-musks-snl-appearance-.html https://www.platformer.news/p/-how-basecamp-blew-up ————————————————————— Use the hashtag #Techish on Twitter & IG Support Techish at www.patreon.com/techish Advertise on Techish: goo.gl/forms/MY0F79gkRG6Jp8dJ2 ----------------- Stay In Touch: www.twitter.com/michaelberhane_ www.twitter.com/abadesi www.twitter.com/hustlecrewlive twitter.com/techishpod Email us at techishpod@gmail.com
Meghann Misiak is the sales strategist/trainer who Founded The Path to President’s Club, a professional training and coaching platform that helps salespeople find the shortcut to the highlight of their career. By helping individuals achieve mastery of their craft, her platform allows salespeople to work consistently and get their return of investment faster than usual. Meghann has been in the business of transformation since 2016 with the way that she’s been accountable for not only training sales teams and inspiring change, but also for driving results. She does this by helping B2B sales teams close - in higher quantities and higher profitability through sales training, frameworks, and coaching. Through her method of enabling sales leaders to scale and develop their teams in a more strategic way, she’s able to ensure that every seller is set up for success from the first day. Throughout the course of her career that spanned in a few short years, she went from a commission-only sales job, to achieving President's Club during her first year in a B2B sales role, then moved on to becoming the Associate Director of GTM Training at Movable Ink, an enterprise Saas organization that caters to clients like AmEx, Hilton, and The Home Depot. The Path to President’s Club is the fulfillment of Meghan’s career. It was the result of her taking the leap into her dream job as a sales training consultant and helping B2B sales teams accomplish their own wildest dreams. Geek out about sales with Meghann Misiak on The Path to President’s Club Website at https://www.pathtopresidentsclub.com/ and connect with her on LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/meghannmisiak/Join the Sales Hustle Community! Text “Hustle” to 424-401-9300!If you’re listening to the Sales Hustle podcast, please subscribe, share, and we’re listening for your feedback. If you are a sales professional looking to take your sales career to the next level, please visit us at https://salescast.co/ and set a time with Collin and co-founder Chris.Please make sure to rate and review the show on Apple.
Customers don’t experience data, they experience content. The mission of Movable Ink is to provide tools that connect data with the right creative and deliver it at the right moment for customers. In this episode of IN GEAR, India and Nick talk with Lalit Chopra, SVP of Product, and Bill Reinwald, Director of Business Development at Movable Ink about how marketers are delivering data-driven creative in real-time at scale. You’ll also hear: How to manage loyalty programs and branding elements while delivering captivating real-time experiences How Movable Ink and MessageGears are working together to give marketers the power to harness their customer data What’s next for data-driven creative Plus, we cover some examples of micro-moments gone wrong, and India takes Lalit and Bill through a grueling Lightning Round. Hope y’all enjoy!
Over the past year, the COVID-19 pandemic has transformed the banking landscape with a new wave of digital acceleration that's pushed almost every sector of financial services to innovate their processes and technology. In our latest episode of Ink Tank, Jackie Mattia, Director of Strategy for Movable Ink's Financial Services practice, is joined by Brittany Offredi, Senior Manager of Email Channel Management at Scotiabank, to reflect on what's been a year of reshaping customer experiences and upping digital transformation. Learn how Scotiabank enhanced member experiences by taking a personalized, data-driven approach to marketing and innovation.
In this episode, we sit with Jessica Vogol, VP of Marketing at Movable Ink to talk about how Movable Ink pivoted quickly toward online events once COVID hit. https://www.cavesocial.com/jessica-vogol/
Jessica is an experienced marketing professional with a demonstrated history of success at SaaS businesses, growth-stage companies and tech startups. She is a strong leader invested in developing marketing talent and teamwork. Jessica has been at Movable Ink for 6 years, holding 4 roles within the marketing team. As Vice President of Marketing at Movable Ink, Jessica leads a team responsible for all global performance marketing activities including demand generation, ABM, client, partner, content, and events marketing. In her role, she created and launched the Think Summit, annual conference, as well as two roadshow programs: the Experience Transformation Tour (formerly the Email Transformation Tour) and the X Series.
This is the second episode of the Innovation Series -- where we will highlight experts from marketing experts to learn how they are innovating in Salesforce Marketing Cloud.In this episode, hosts Bobby and Cole chat with Kyle Schroeder and Mike Dietz from Movable Ink. Movable Ink is a personalized content platform that helps digital marketers create personalized, visual experiences across email, web, and display. They take data and context and turn it into creative that is generated in real time, or at the moment of engagement for the end user. In this episode, Kyle and Mike share: + Solutions Movable Ink has created for Marketing Cloud+ What the most widely used feature is on the Movable Ink platform+ How their clients have helped push them to innovate in the Movable Ink platform+ Innovative customer examples A big thank you to Movable Ink for being a sponsor of Ultraviolet. Be sure to check them out in the session, “Personalization Tactics to Excel in a Changing Landscape.”
In this episode Gavin is joined by two well-seasoned podcasters and Fulham FC fans Adam Farquharson from Movable Ink along with his guest Sammy James, but don't let the latter put you off! They'll discuss the merits of personalization, real-time content, why you need to think of email as a service you provide to your customers, and how to deal with serial unsubscribes. If that's not enough we've got some incredible music recommendations too. This is one not to be missed!
This is the second episode of the Innovation Series -- where we will highlight experts from marketing experts to learn how they are innovating in Salesforce Marketing Cloud.In this episode, hosts Bobby and Cole chat with Kyle Schroeder and Mike Dietz from Movable Ink. Movable Ink is a personalized content platform that helps digital marketers create personalized, visual experiences across email, web, and display. They take data and context and turn it into creative that is generated in real time, or at the moment of engagement for the end user. In this episode, Kyle and Mike share: + Solutions Movable Ink has created for Marketing Cloud+ What the most widely used feature is on the Movable Ink platform+ How their clients have helped push them to innovate in the Movable Ink platform+ Innovative customer examples A big thank you to Movable Ink for being a sponsor of Ultraviolet. Be sure to check them out in the session, “Personalization Tactics to Excel in a Changing Landscape.”
Mixergy - Startup Stories with 1000+ entrepreneurs and businesses
Joining me is an entrepreneur who’s been in the news quite a bit because he raised a bunch of money. But before all that, the company failed on many ways with many early customers. Today’s guest is willing to talk openly with me about that. Vivek Sharma is the founder of Movable Ink which activates any data into real-time, personalized content in any customer engagement. Over 700 of the world’s most innovative brands rely on Movable Ink to accelerate their marketing performance. Vivek Sharma is the founder of Movable Ink which activates any data into real-time, personalized content in any customer engagement. Over 700 of the world’s most innovative brands rely on Movable Ink to accelerate their marketing performance. Sponsored bySaneBox – We all get so much email and most of it does not need to be read, let alone interrupt your day. SaneBox’s AI makes sure that only important email stays in your Inbox. Cut your team’s email management time in half and have more productive days with SaneBox. Mixergy listeners who sign up for a free trial get a $25 credit towards a SaneBox subscription. HostGator – Ready to take your website to the next level? Whether you’re a first-time blogger or an experienced web pro, HostGator has all the tools you need to create a great-looking website or online store. A wide range of options includes cloud-based web hosting, reseller hosting, VPS hosting and dedicated servers. Founded in 2002, HostGator is the perfect web partner for business owners and individuals seeking hands-on support. Visit www.hostgator.com/mixergy to see what HostGator can do for your website. More interviews -> https://mixergy.com/moreint Rate this interview -> https://mixergy.com/rateint
Dramatic shifts in the global economy and consumer behavior turned the retail world upside down last year. Marketers are now coming out the other side to realize their pandemic contingency tactics are suddenly the new norm. In this episode of Ink Tank, Alison Linland, Movable Ink's SVP of Strategy, is joined by Josh Zelman, Senior Director, Customer Experience at Barnes & Noble, to reflect on a transformative blockbuster year for the retailer. Learn how Barnes & Noble pivoted their omni-channel approach to help weather a rocky 2020 and lay the foundation for successful 2021.
I have had the pleasure to interview Nick Rouquette, Associate Director of Partnerships at Movable Ink working in the Nordic and Benelux regions managing relationships with various partners from Marketing Cloud / ESP to tech partners and agencies. I met Nick thanks to the active partnership between Oracle and Movable Ink. He agreed to take the challenge and try to explain what he does in words my mom would understand. During the interview, we have discussed a number of topics such as: How to create content at scale How to personalise emails in real-time to increase conversion, engagement and reduce frustration (ohhh no this product is sold out!!!!) And I taught him a new Moroccan word... Labas! Prior to life at Movable Ink, Nick worked at various Digital marketing Saas companies, including spending 7 years at CheetahMail where he learned the ropes of the CRM world. You can also watch the interview on Youtube. It will also be published on all Podcasting platforms. You can contact Nick via LinkedIn at https://www.linkedin.com/in/nickrouquette/ They are currently hiring. So get in touch with Nick or check their website: https://movableink.com/
2020 has been anything but business as usual for digital marketers. Substantial e-commerce growth combined with various local and national lockdowns have challenged retailers to react and adapt at unanticipated speeds. Now, with 2021 in sight, the focus must shift to preparing for another unpredictable year ahead. In this episode of Ink Tank, Becki Francis from Movable Ink's Strategy Team is joined by Ross Williams, VP of Retail at Emarsys, to reflect on a transformative year and discuss the importance of baking agility into our 2021 plans.
As we navigate out of 2020 and into 2021, marketers should be intentionally thinking about how to sustain the mobile growth that we've seen and spoken about in our previous Ink Tank episode. In this episode, Rachel Cowlishaw from Movable Ink's Strategy Team talks to Dorothy Murach, Product Marketing Manager at Upland Localytics, about shifting consumer behaviors across industries, how brands have pivoted to address these changes, and the winning strategies that marketers should embrace moving into 2021.
With more consumers reaching for their mobile devices amidst the COVID-19 outbreak, many brands have seen a surge in mobile engagement. But what does the current state of mobile marketing look like, and how can marketers work to create elevated multi-channel experiences moving forward? In this episode, Katie White from Movable Ink's Strategy Team and Travis Johnson, Product Manager of Partner Integrations at Airship will discuss the current state of mobile marketing, including how marketers can use automation to free up valuable production time and create 1:1 experiences across channels.
Join host Adam Michalski as he interviews Kyle Schroeder, Head of Global Partnerships at Movable Ink. Kyle shares his learnings from getting started in partnerships at Salesforce all the way to leading up global partnerships at Movable Ink. This is a great episode centered on co-selling and how to maximize the revenue you can drive with partners. Topics Covered:Why co-selling with partners is an integral motion at Movable InkWhat the foundational elements are when building out your partner programHow to set up your metrics / KPIs to maximize the value you get from your partnershipsHow Kyle structures his partnership team regionally with a focus on sourced/influenced revenueTactical advice on how to set up your CRM to make sure you're getting the right dataPartner with Movable InkMovable InkPartner with Movable InkCheck out the Movable Ink ExchangeAttend the Movable Ink (RE)Think Virtual ConferenceSponsors:Partnership LeadersPartnered.ioSubscribe at www.partneredpodcast.com.Interested in joining the podcast? Reach out to hello@partnered.io*. *
In the first episode, we host Sahil Lavingia. Sahil is the founder and CEO of Gumroad. He also runs a successful $7 million a year early-stage fund. The fund typically writes $100,000 to $250,000 cheques and has invested in HelloSign, Movable Ink, Lambda School, Figma, Clubhouse, and Haus. Sahil is interviewed by Iyin 'E' Aboyeji, the founder of Future Africa and co-founder Andela and Flutterwave. Invest In The Future is a live fireside chat series by Future Africa to learn from prolific angel investors who have invested in and built some of the world's most impactful technology companies. Future Africa is a platform for mission-driven innovators and investors turning Africa's biggest challenges into global business opportunities. Learn more about Future Africa at www.future.africa
0.00 - 0.24: An introduction to the podcast0.28 - 32.26: In the main section of the podcast we cover three more core Behavioural Science principles and applications. The time-stamps for each of those principles are:1.27: The Cocktail Party Effect12.40: Social Proof20.58: The Peak End Rule32.27 - 37.23: A brief discussion about the ethics of deploying Behavioural Science techniques within marketing.37.27 - 45.05: We share what we're loving this week - news, tools and resources that we have found useful or interesting and that listeners might too.45.10 - 45.30: Outro.External links referenced:Most references made by Jen come from her book 'Choice Hacking'. CLICK HERE.Paper on studies of transparency within recommendation engines. CLICK HERE.Movable Ink. CLICK HERE.'The Ethics of Nudging' by Cass Sunstein. CLICK HERE.Bob Hoffman blog on brand-building. CLICK HERE.Facebook Vs Apple Forbes Article. CLICK HERE.The contentious YouTube video featuring the movie 'Contact'. CLICK HERE.Audio-Visual assets:Imagery: Photo by Matthew Brodeur on UnsplashMusic: Hot Thang by Daniel Fridell. CLICK HERE.
In this week's episode of Analytics Neat we cover a Series C raise for Movable Ink, Ransomware attacks, and the definition of PII on the Undercard. For the Main Event, we take a look at 10 trends for 2020 recently published by Gartner. All this and more in this week's episode of Analytics Neat. Thanks for listening! iTunes: https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/analytics-neat/id1350608276?mt=2 Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/2DIz7pDt5IYA2VJ86LbaK3 Google Play: https://play.google.com/music/m/Iaeur7hjizv7s654nbcsfgtxsmq?t=Analytics_Neat Continue the conversation on Twitter with #AnalyticsNeat https://twitter.com/BillBruno https://twitter.com/AnalyticsNeat Visit BillBruno.com
Movable Ink, a company that helps businesses deliver more personalized and relevant email marketing, is announcing that it has raised $30 million in Series funding. The company will be 10 years old in October, and founder and CEO Vivek Sharma told me that it's always been “capital efficient” — even with the new round, Movable […]
In this episode, Katie White, Associate Director of Client Strategy for Travel at Movable Ink and Josh Rashkin, Email Marketing Manager at Frontier Airlines, will discuss the many ways in which customer behavior has changed in the wake of COVID-19 as it pertains to the travel industry. They'll cover how Frontier has rapidly adapted their marketing communications to meet their customers' needs, how those communications have changed over the last few months, and how they plan to re-engage their audience in this next sustained phase of the pandemic.
In this special Pride edition of the Inkredible Marketer interview series, Julio Lopez from Movable Ink's Strategy Team interviews Saul Lopes, Head of CRM at Dixons Carphone, about being a part of the LGBTQ+ community and leading transformation at a leading multinational company.
In this episode of Ink Tank, Alison Lindland, SVP of Strategy at Movable Ink, sits down with Joyce Poole, Sr. Director of Marketing CRM at Lending Tree, for an insightful interview with valuable career advice and best practices.
Along with the rest of the world, the way that brands market to their customers has changed dramatically in 2020. Now more than ever, brands are under scrutiny - and rightfully so. In this episode, Rachel Cowlishaw from Movable Ink's Strategy Team and Nick Ziech-Lopez, Product Owner at MessageGears, discuss how brands have pivoted to develop creative, customer-centric digital experiences and meaningful content.
Even in the best of times, retail processes - from supply chain to marketing - were far from perfect. Today, there is a heightened need for retailers to be more agile and quick to market while still delivering a truly customer-centric shopping experience. In this episode, Julio Lopez and Rachel Cowlishaw from Movable Ink's Strategy Team sit down with Ashley Ellis, RVP of Enterprise Retail Sales at Salesforce, to discuss how the most successful brands are bringing rapid innovation into their marketing strategies, and how they are creating a single view of their customers.
In part two of this two-part series, Myles Kleeger, President & Chief Customer Officer at Braze, along with Jackie Mattia and Naveen Wall from Movable Ink's Strategy Team will share valuable industry insights and discuss how brands can drive long-term customer value.
If you've tried a new product or service as a result of this pandemic, you're far from alone. In fact, many companies have seen an uptick in new business as a result of COVID-19. Marketers are now challenged to keep those customers engaged over time and to convert them into high-quality, long-term customers. In this episode, Myles Kleeger, President & Chief Customer Officer at Braze, along with Jackie Mattia and Naveen Wall from Movable Ink's Strategy Team will share valuable industry insights and discuss how brands can drive long-term customer value.
As we look ahead to the remainder of 2020, there's a big question on everyone's mind: What will the world look like post-pandemic? For retailers, the in-store experience will never be the same. Join Julio Lopez and Becki Francis from the Strategy Team at Movable Ink, along with John Swords, Head of Customer Experience at FindMine, to explore how retail experiences need to evolve in this new climate. They'll discuss current retail trends and ways that digital marketers can up-level customer experiences with mobile activation, digital receipts, abandoned cart emails, and more.
From free trials to new product bundles, subscription-based services are pulling out all stops to attract and retain customers during the pandemic. But the question remains: are these tactics working? In this episode of Ink Tank, Naveen Wall and Julio Lopez from Movable Ink's Strategy team discuss how subscription-based services from media streaming to retail can effectively acquire new customers, optimize lifetime value, and reduce churn. They'll explore strategies that are unique to subscription services and take a look at the brands that are doing an incredible job.
The novel coronavirus is having a massive influence on the global economy, and marketers need to respond and adapt to a quickly changing landscape. In this episode, Jackie Mattia and Elle Kross from the Client Strategy at Movable Ink share industry-specific tactics that financial services brands to retain customers, maintain transparency, and ensure education and understanding as the crisis continues to develop.
In this episode, Alison Lindland, SVP of Strategy at Movable Ink, and Tom Buchok, CEO of Mailcharts, discuss some of the surprising trends happening in email marketing right now amidst the coronavirus outbreak. They'll cover how marketers are changing up their email campaigns, trends in email engagement, and how marketers can stand out from the pack in a sea of “COVID-19 Update” subject lines.
These days, when it comes to marketing, there's no such thing as business as usual. That's why Movable Ink is bringing you Ink Tank: a video podcast series for marketers in today's ever-changing environment. Subscribe now and don't miss a thing.
My guest today is Andrea Mignolo. Andrea is VP of Product and Design at Movable Ink, a marketing technology company based in New York. In this episode, we discuss design as a way of being in the world, and why it matters. Listen to the full conversation https://theinformeddotlife.files.wordpress.com/2019/11/the-informed-life-episode-22-andrea-mignolo.mp3 Show notes Andrea Mignolo's website Andrea Mignolo on Twitter Andrea Mignolo on Medium Oberlin College Free Speech TV Rails Ember.js Reflections on Business, Design, and Value by Andrea Mignolo Learning Through Worldmaking: The Design Way by Andrea Mignolo The Interaction Design Association VUCA Peter Senge Phil Gilbert Sketch Photoshop New Ventures West Andrea's Experiential Learning Cycle diagram Case Western Reserve University Fernando Flores BEING IN THE WORLD (2010 documentary file) Martin Heidegger Humberto Maturana John Dewey Read the full transcript Jorge: All right, Andrea, welcome to the show. Andrea: Thank you for having me. I'm really excited to be here. Jorge: So for folks who don't know you would you please introduce yourself? Andrea: Sure. My name is Andrea Mignolo. I'm currently the Vice President of product and design at Movable Ink, a company in New York. I'm a designer by background. I came into it through interaction design and had a very winding path to where I am today. Jorge: I'm curious about that, how has the path wound? Andrea: My path started in… Probably in college. I went to Oberlin, and they have a program for… They have the ability for you to design your own major and I was very interested in technology. The internet was pretty nascent at that point, and I was really curious about how we shape technology and how technology shapes us. And I didn't know about HCI at the time I think the programs that were visible to me were probably like the science technology and Society programs. So I kind of looked to those to model my own major and built something called techno-cultural studies. After that, I was really curious about just working in technology, so I ended up as a video game tester and then made my way over to running digital systems for a nonprofit called Free Speech TV from there. I went to Japan and taught English for four years business English, but while driving between all of the different companies that I was teaching at. I listened to a lot of podcasts, and this is kind of after the first internet crash the dot com bust, and new things were starting to happen on the internet. And I was just really obsessed with what people were building and what people were doing, and it was around that time also through these podcasts that I started to learn about interaction design. And something with that clicked for me, and I realized that is the thing that I wanted to do. So from there, I made my way back to the States, gradually. I had a stop in Vancouver worked for some [inaudible] agencies, and then ended up in New York during a time where Rails is really getting big. And there were a number of interesting startup things happening. And so it's just really windy. Jorge: It sounds like the implementation side of things has played a role in your foundations as a professional. Do you consider yourself a more technically-inclined designer? Andrea: In my earlier days, I was definitely doing a lot more front-end development work, Was a WordPress developer for a while when I came to New York I joined a company that was. Kind of bringing in design for the first time. But they were a Rails shop. And so, I started to learn Rails. At my previous company, we used Ember, and I did all of the front-end development work for the first few years in that platform. These days, I don't… Well, I am writing a little bit of code for a marketing site, but for the most part, I'm not doing that much anymore. But yeah, I would definitely say that I have a technical background. Jorge: You've posted several articles to Medium that drew my attention, and I wanted to talk about that a little bit. You talk in these articles about the value of design, and the idea that design perhaps is not as valued as it should be. Would you please elaborate a bit on this idea of the value of design, as you see it? Andrea: Yeah, I'll see if I can unravel that when I first encountered design… Again, I think it was through interaction design, the Interaction Design Association, there's something with it that really clicked for me. It was suddenly, “Oh, this is how I see the world. This is how I interact with it this is how I learn.” Which, you know coming up through the American school system, Oberlin was a great school and had kind of different styles of teaching, but we ended up in a lot of classrooms all the time just receiving information. And ever since then, I've just been kind of obsessed with it at first in my early career like what does it mean to be a designer? How do you engage in the craft of design? But then, in more recent years, I've been really trying to unravel, “What is it that we're doing when we design?” Because I think it's that attitude or that posture, that perspective, that allows us to explore the world in a unique way. I think that's really the value. And also, obviously, the artifacts that we're making that can push conversations along, etc. And everything that I'm talking about and writing about right now, I'm in the midst of like, there's a lot that's swirling, and I have a lot of unpublished posts and things that I'm trying to articulate to really get hands on this. And so, it's still like a process in the midst of. Jorge: I'm going interpret what it is that I read, and you tell me if that corresponds with the intent, is that design can be not just for making things but also as a way of knowing the world, somehow. Andrea: Yeah. Jorge: As a way of putting small feelers out that allow organizations to experiment with different ways of being. Andrea: Yeah. Jorge: You talk about the concept of VUCA. Could you unpack that a bit? Andrea: VUCA is volatile, uncertain, ambiguous, and what's the C? I can't remember. Jorge: Complexity? Andrea: It might be. But just this idea that we don't live in a predictable world. We never have. There might have been a moment of perceived stability in our kind of limited human senses. But especially now, the complexity of the systems that we've built and the pushing of the ecosystem to the edge of sustainability, there's nothing predictable anymore. Jorge: Yeah, certainly. And business cycles seem to be… Not getting shorter, but the changes that are experienced in each cycle seem to be bigger in some way. It's one of the things that resonated with me when I when I read them, this notion that the traditional way that business folk have gone about making decisions has had to do with models they build in spreadsheets, that presume that there are things about the future they can control or that they can they can forecast. And the argument that I thought you were making with the post was that design gives you a different way of knowing about the future, that doesn't have to do with the numbers. Andrea: Yeah, absolutely. And it's, a lot of times the numbers, again, they point to potential certainty. And I think it's important to use the numbers, and there are other models in financial valuation that can take in risk ambiguity and kind of different paths, but I think what design really points to is this ability to look very broadly and explore a lot of different scenarios that can be valuable to a business and to constantly… I think the reason why it's… The learning part is very interesting to me and very important, and I think it dovetails with some of Peter Senge's writings, is can it shift a conversation into what do we need to learn or what do we not know? There's so much in conversations with business and ROI that's just about like this is the thing. This is the way it is. Versus shifting into this constant open, curious, learning system that helps a business navigate all of these kinds of complexities. Jorge: How would it do that through design? Andrea: It's a good question, what I'm still working on and trying to figure out. But I think, in a lot of ways, it's potentially using things like design thinking across an organization to help shift some of these conversations. I think a lot of people talk about wanting design-driven companies, but I think that that's maybe a little too much hubris. I think it's really design helping facilitate and spread these activities ways of thinking ways of exploring into other departments as well or just creating a culture where this is part of the approach. I think it might have been Phil Gilbert I was talking to, where one of the first things they did at IBM and they were spinning up design was that they partnered with HR and started working with how can design and HR work together to create human-centered experiences for employees. So I think there's this kind of… Depending on the size of the organization, other things are happening. It's a slow process. It's… you know, you're a system inside another system, and all these systems are dynamic and at play. And so you have to figure out how do you start putting, I think you had mentioned earlier, these feelers out. Or, how do you start doing small things and seeing how those start to shift and change in the conversations that are happening? And so, I'm in the midst of being, I think… My writings right now are very abstract about it because I have to figure out what the thing is that I'm pointing to before bringing it back into, and in practice, where all those things are also happening, and what does it look like. Jorge: I'm not familiar with Movable Ink. What does Movable Ink do? Andrea: So we are a B2B SAAS company. We are in the marketing technology space, and basically I describe it as “design tool kits plus APIs.” So the idea is that marketers have very advanced marketing strategies, but it's very hard to create all the content to serve, especially when we're talking about things like micro-segmentation. It's hard to get all of the creative and content to serve the various audiences that marketers are trying to reach. So basically, we connect APIs to creative, like a Sketch- or Photoshop-like tool that we have. And you can connect your APIs to that, and then just generate creative at scale. So a lot of designers at some point in their career have created hundreds of banner ads for various things. And so we can automate a lot of that. So it's kind of an interesting creative automation space that we're playing in. Jorge: So if I'm understanding that correctly, it makes iterating through designs that are perhaps very similar in some ways, iterating through variations in an automated fashion. Andrea: Yeah, what will happen is that the creative will be composed at the moment someone uses it. So we take in contextual signals etc. so that there is a level of personalization. We started in email, so it was very opt-in. Right now, we're moving into web and mobile. But yeah, so we take certain things that we know about the person, where they are, their name, etc. And instead of having a team who's creating each one of those variations, the system just does it at the moment the person looks at the creative. So it's not replacing the design tools that designers are using it's more once those have been made marketing teams can take them, they connect data and then have them generate all the variations when somebody views it. Jorge: I know organizations who would immediately see the value in having a way of scaling up their design production work through something that lets them plug their design tools into their APIs. I also know lots of organizations for whom, if I described that phrase, they would not even understand what I'm talking about. There's this big gap in the world between those. I'm wondering, how does one appeal to them? How does one talk to folks? I'm asking because I'm struggling with the same thing. It's like, how does one get folks to understand that the way that type of work has been done for a long time has gone away, and it's moving to this other domain? Andrea: I'm going to answer that probably more broadly than specifically about Movable Ink. But I recently completed a coaching program from New Ventures West in integral coaching, which is a kind of ontological approach to coaching and ways of being. And one of the things that you learn in coaching is that you have to meet the person where they're at in order for developmental work to begin. And that when you start working with a client, there has to be an opening. And I think those two things are also very critical in working with organizations where there has to be an opening, something that has happened to make them open to, “Hey, wait a minute. Something's not right here. We need to fix this.” Or you know, whatever it might be. And then the other is just, you have to meet them where they're at. And one of the reasons I ended up going to business school and getting an MBA was, I wasn't sure how to have conversations with business using design language. So a lot of times you're having those conversations, not talking about design at all, which I think some designers are uncomfortable with. But we only started using the word “design” in the 14th century, maybe. But I would argue we've been doing it for quite a bit longer than that. So whatever it is that you're getting to, you're trying to drive certain outcomes and work on something together. Language is also a technology, so use the one that's going to help facilitate that communication and start transforming into whatever it is that you're trying to get to. Jorge: There's a diagram in one of your Medium stories that has what I see as a sort of feedback loop. It has a feedback loop where you have four stages of what you've labeled the Experiential Learning Cycle. Can you describe those? Andrea: Yeah, the Experiential Learning Cycle is actually something that I learned when I was in my MBA program. So this is all research and scholarship that comes out of Case Western Reserve University. And it was just so fascinating being in school and everything that we would learn, I'd be like, “Oh, that sounds like design.” And that was something we did in the first the very first session we had together, and we all took… It's called the learning style inventory. I use it with my teams at work. And there's a quick survey or whatever you can take to understand where you fall, or where your comfort zone is, in the learning style inventory. And so we did this in the beginning, and part of it was because we needed to understand… There are certain polarities in that learning cycle where two people might… It might be very hard for them to work together if they don't understand where their comfort zones are, which is why it's really great to use for teams. But we did this because we had to form our study groups, and we were stuck with a study group for two years. So they had us, you know, visualize everyone on a Big Grid and then we kind of… They locked us in a room, and we had to form chains, and it was really awkward. But anyway, I remember learning about this when we saw the experiential learning cycle. And I went up to my professor, and I was just like, “Oh, this is design. This is what we do when we design.” He looked at me. And so, I've been thinking about that a lot, and it wasn't till I had some time after graduation that I could start exploring that more. But I think that as we move through, what I like about the experiential learning cycle is that it has these two axes. One is about transforming experiences; the other is about grasping those experiences. I think that there are things that they get mapped to. But as you're moving through it, there are these tensions that you're trying to resolve to understand what's happening. And I think that those tensions are where creativity comes from. And so it gets very interesting when you map that to design. And I, originally in that post, I also segued into double-loop learning, but then it just got overwhelming. So there's another article at some point that's about the double-loop learning with experiential learning, but that's for later. Jorge: You talked about these two sets of tensions, and you described one of them as… I'm probably not going to use the exact terms you used, but the way that I understood them is, one of them has to do with changing things in some way, and the other has to do with reflecting on the impact of those changes. Is that right? Andrea: The reflection can happen. In the Experiential Learning Cycle the transforming experience is acting and reflecting, and then the other axis is feeling and thinking. And so it's kind of like an understanding versus reflection. Jorge: So the way I'm understanding this is that this is a way of understanding what's going on by making things and intervening in things, in the way they are, and then gauging the results of what you've done and the impact they've had. Is that fair? Andrea: I think so. Jorge: I'm wondering If this line of thinking, or how this line of thinking has had an impact on your own way of being in the world; how you work? Andrea: I think that's what drew me again to the coaching program that I was in, this integral coaching. Because it really is about ways of being but using metaphors to kind of invite you. Into new ways of being and using that language or technology of language into opening up possibilities. And so with the experiential learning cycle with any of these things, it's… I think that's what I'm exploring is: What is this when it's embodied and lived and embraced fully? Versus, you know, “Hey, this is the craft that's producing this thing.” And this is where I think design often can maybe get stuck in organizations, is really focusing on, oh, the product or the service. But that's a small facet of a much larger environment in which we're acting and behaving and affecting various things. Jorge: I hear more and more of our peers, folks who are our colleagues, getting into coaching. What led you to explore that? Andrea: I care a lot about flourishing. It's a very important word to me, and I feel that my mission is to help organizations create new ways of working to support flourishing individuals and flourishing organizations. So part of the reason I went back to business school was trying to understand how organizations work, right? Like, how do I start affecting things at the organizational level, in an organizational-design kind of way? And Case also has a really great organizational behavior program. But you don't learn about the people part in business school. So I had design, and I had business, but I didn't have people. And in researching various programs, I knew that ontological coaching was very important to me. I've [been] influenced by Fernando Flores and ontological design. And I think a lot of what's happening in that program. And when you when you design these programs for people, it's just another exploration embodiment of what it means to design and be in the world. Jorge: I'm unfamiliar with ontological coaching. Can you describe it? Andrea: Yeah, ontological coaching really is about people's ways of being and what I talked about earlier, in terms of using metaphors to shift how you're showing up in the world, how you are embodied in the world, what is possible for you. That's ontological coaching. A lot of times coaching might take the form of like, “Go do these five things and then do this other thing.” Or, you know, If it's a compliance thing for an organization where somebody maybe is on a pip, there's very different forms. But the purpose of this style of coaching in this ontological coaching, is to help people start to become aware of what keeps them stuck, and to build self-generating behavior. So the idea is that you wouldn't have an integral coach for five years, right? Maybe have a six-month engagement, and it's tied to certain types of developmental outcomes. But it's all about your way of being in the world. That's the thing that we learn, it's the thing we learn how to understand. We do use various models. But we also use our own… The first six months of the program, you're building your own capacity to be present and to be in relationship with someone to understand what's happening with them. Jorge: You've been using this phrase “being in the world,” and I'm reminded of a documentary called Being in the World. It's a film about the philosophy of Heidegger, and it's centered on Hubert Dreyfus. And it's about this very subject. Andrea: Yeah, and that's the type of philosophy that informs this program. There's Heidegger, a lot of Maturana, Flores, John Dewey. So, it's definitely a world that had underpinnings and foundations with people that had already been very influential in my own thinking, in terms of design. So to see it kind of pull into this program where you're working with people and understanding them and helping them design different ways to show up in the world. Jorge: You know, I can see how something like ontological coaching can transform someone's life. And I'm wondering if it's possible for organizations to do something like that. Not just for people, right? Andrea: That's what I'm wondering as well. And when you think about like metaphors that we use for organizations, the author's blanking… But there's, I think he had categorized eight metaphors: organization as organism, organization as machine, organization as political system, organization as psychic prison. You know, metaphors open the door to possibilities, but they also can shut down possibilities. And so, understanding the metaphors that we're approaching organizations with, I think is incredibly important for what it means for an organization to shift its way of being. And I know that this form of coaching, the woman who is our master coach does a lot of this with teams and groups. And I know that you can also apply the narrative in the metaphors to them, and I think it's definitely scales up to the organizational level as well. Jorge: Yeah, I suspect that. It takes us back to the topic we covered earlier about creating a particular culture in the organization so that they understand themselves differently. Andrea: Yeah. Jorge: I'm curious about this idea of using metaphors as a way of inviting you into new ways of being. Do you have an example of what that looks like? Andrea: Yeah, I mean it's tied up with the approach in the methodology. So integral coaching is really about, you know, there's different types of coaching for compliance coaching for outcomes Etc. And interview coaching is developmental. It takes, like I mentioned earlier, there's usually like an opening someone will come to you with some problem They're having or something they want to work on. Through the methodology you look at everything else that's going on in their world as well this idea that you have to look at the whole system and starting to get a sense of what's really happening underneath that that core thing and what it's like for that person to be in the world and where they're getting stuck and through that you start to understand what's the metaphor that might… Their experience in the world right now. And I will share it. We joke, the cohort that I was in. We recently went through certification, and you have to coach someone live in front of a panel and also part of your class. And we share a list of metaphors that we've used, narratives with our clients. And we're joking, “Hey, Let's use an oak tree and Joan of Arc. Like everyone can have an oak tree and Joan of Arc. It's going to fit we're going to try to do it.” It was a total joke because we definitely want to be present with the person you're coaching. But the idea would be like, yeah, maybe you are like an oak tree right now, and you're kind of grounded, but you're not connected whatever and if there was some opening for them to be maybe I don't know Joan of Arc riding into battle or whatever. It might be but something. That very particularly connects with your felt sense of what they're experiencing, and what's possible that type of thing you keep coming back to: “Oh, but what is it like to be in the world in this way?” Or another example, I recently got from my coach was to be of the whale. Jorge: A whale? Andrea: Yeah, to show up like a whale. And so, that's how I think about each day. It's like, what is that? And I'm exploring this way of being in the world. So it's like a whale, and it does open up completely different possibilities. Jorge: Can you unpack the whale metaphor a little bit? Andrea: I think for me, and what I've been working with the being in the world and a whale way is in its embracing the bigness right of just like being here not being small, but also not being affected by things right? You're just kind of… You're a big whale. And you can smack the little boats if you need to. But yeah, it was a new narrative. It was offered to me about a month ago. So I'm still exploring it and working with it. Jorge: I find this fascinating, this idea that you can take really what is kind of a verbal construct, and allow that to become an embodied way of being different in the world. Andrea: Yeah, well, and that's the beauty of integral coaching is it is somatic, it is heart-centered, and it is head-centered. So all of these centers have to be online, and you have to work with all of them for any shift to happen. It can't just be an intellectual activity. It has to be felt, it has to be embodied, and it has to be connected in your heart. Jorge: That's a wonderful place to wrap up the conversation. Where can folks follow up with you? Andrea: I'm on Twitter as pnts; [it's] probably the best place to follow up with me is Twitter I have a site pnts.us I have a very sporadic newsletter that I send out, but I need to finish one and get it out the door, but… And I'm on Medium as well. Jorge: Fantastic. Thank you so much for being on the show. Andrea: Thank you for having me.
Vivek Sharma of Movable Ink surveyed his superstar employees to learn what qualities they shared and what he found surprised him. In this episode, Vivek dives into the human side of business growth, from identifying leaders to losing sleep over a tough conversation he has to have in the morning. Don’t forget to visit our blog we.co/upatnight, where you’ll find more advice and useful solutions for growing your business along with additional information about Up At Night.
Julio Lopez (Client Strategy at Movable Ink) joins us at Braze HQ to share the concept of a visual experience platform and how it can be used to create not just dynamic, personalized emails.. But also to keep that unique experience in tact as customers move across channels and even onto a website. TRANSCRIPT: [0:00:17] PJ Bruno: Hello again. Welcome back to Braze for Impact, your martech industry discuss digest. And I'm so happy to be joined today by Julio Lopez, associate director of client strategy at Movable Ink. Julio, thanks so much for being here. [0:00:32] Julio Lopez: Yeah, I'm happy to be here, nothing like a podcast for a marketing nerd like me to participate in. [0:00:37] PJ Bruno: I love it, podcasts on a Friday. And thanks for coming in under these heat conditions. It's a ridiculous. [0:00:43] Julio Lopez: It's really warm out. I'm happy that I got to make it into your office and cool off a little bit. [0:00:47] PJ Bruno: And I'm glad that this isn't a video podcast because you'd see us both melting in our pants right now. But anyways, let's cut to it. Julio, why don't you tell us a little bit more about yourself? [0:00:58] Julio Lopez: Sure. My role within Movable Ink is to partner with key clients to identify and deliver strategy frameworks that drive meaningful results. I started my career at CheetahMail focusing on strategic email development and deployment. Then went on to lead the customer success team at RevTrax, which is an offer management platform. And before joining Movable Ink,I was leading integration work streams for Eversight, which is a retail pricing and promotion optimization firm. I've now been with Movable Ink for a little over a year, and it's my pleasure to be here today to discuss the exciting world of email marketing. [0:01:32] PJ Bruno: Yes, and I'm so glad you were able to fit us in the schedule, man. Really appreciate it. So, why don't you just tell us a little more about Movable Ink for those of us out there who have not had the pleasure to experience your brand? [0:01:42] Julio Lopez: Of course Movable Ink is a visual experience platform. And our technology enables digital marketing leaders to create unique, relevant and compelling visual experiences across email and web and display at the exact moment of engagement. We work with over 700 of the world's leading brands and have over 300 employees across the globe. [0:02:04] PJ Bruno: Wow. I heard you say visual experience platform. Can you expand on that? What is that? [0:02:10] Julio Lopez: Sure. A visual experience platform is a SaaS solution that allows digital marketers to free their data from the silos that they're typically housed in and activate that data to generate intelligent creative with millions and millions of unique variations based on things like consumer context, consumer behavior and third-party insights. And all of it is done in real time. [0:02:33] PJ Bruno: Oh man. Cool. That sounds really valuable. So yeah, data silos can cause a lot of frustration for marketers, as I'm sure you've seen, who try to activate them. But applying that to email specifically, what are some of the ways that Movable Ink helps marketers take email to that next level with visual experience platforms? [0:02:54] Julio Lopez: Well, our primary goal is to help brands create these one-to-one visual experiences that based on data, and there's a lot of ways that we can do this. It could be something more sophisticated, like pulling any customer's loyalty data into an email in real time and converting a points value to a specific reward recommendation. Or it could be something as simple as pulling in a customer's name into an email header and using a custom branded font. One of our travel clients use that strategy to add their customer's name to a header image, and it was an image of a boarding pass, and it was a really clever and eye-catching way to get the customer's attention. But to be clear, we do like to focus on more sophisticated use cases. And some of my favorites are realtime pricing for hotels and airlines, as well as real time inventory for eCommerce brands. And when I say real time, I mean that at the exact moment that the email is opened, the information updates automatically. And again, these are just a few ways that our clients are using Movable Ink to take their emails to the next level. But there are tons and tons of use cases that we've developed across all verticals. [0:04:03] PJ Bruno: That's amazing. So, this real time aspect, it sounds like a fairly novel solution to a newer problem as marketers have access to these increasing amounts of consumer data. So how do you see Movable Ink bringing traditional marketing into the new age? [0:04:22] Julio Lopez: Well, if I stop and think about the current state of marketing, it becomes really apparent that we're living in a visual era. Images and visuals are now the language that moves people. And I think this has led to an all new set of requirements for digital marketers. Brands need to create compelling visual experiences that are unique to the individual every single time that customer engages with the brand. But creating these personalized visual experiences at scale is really, really difficult. And the difficulty stems from the fact that traditional martech stacks weren't designed for the visual era. So, as a result, many marketing investments are no longer moving the needle. And not to put too fine of a point on it, but as the number of digital touchpoints continues to increase, the problem will snowball, and those unique visual experiences will only become harder and harder to create. So with that in mind, I think that marketers are kind of faced with a false choice. They can either create personalized experiences for small segments in a non-scalable way, or they can create generic experiences that reach a broader audience. And this is where I see Movable link bringing marketing into the new age. Using our visual experience platform, companies can thrive in today's visual era by freeing their data from those silos and activating that data to generate creative with millions of unique variations. And you're doing that across multiple channels and personalizing for every individual at every touch point. [0:05:51] PJ Bruno: It feels like we're living in the future. So I want to hear more about visual experience platform because this is new to me. This is the very first time I'm hearing about it. So what other benefits do you see for organizations who leverage this? [0:06:03] Julio Lopez: Sure. I think the core benefit is the scalable and personalized creative that's generated in real time, at the moment of each engagement. The scalability translates to marketers finally being able to move away from focusing on segments to focusing on creating these one-to-one, unique and relevant experiences. Also, because of the scalability, production becomes highly automated, which means that teams can now focus less on low level tactical activities and more on strategy to create those innovative, on-brand experiences that drive revenue. And I'll also add one more thing. One of the best things about a visual experience platform is that there's no need to rip and replace anything. You can use it with your existing martech stack, supercharging the value of those investments that you've made. [0:06:52] PJ Bruno: That sounds like a game changer. But so something like Movable Ink that has such an impact, I mean it sounds like it could be complicated potentially. How simple is it to inject Movable Ink into a company's marketing initiatives, into their stack? [0:07:06] Julio Lopez: It really is very simple. So the way that our platform works is that we look for a data source that houses customer information, and call up that data source every time the customer is engaging with the brand. So those data searches can be internal, for example, an API into the data warehouse. Or they can be external, say an API into a brand's offer management platform. Because our core focus is on activating existing data sets in real time, we are effectively partner agnostic and work really well with third parties. And we've actually got a robust list of existing partners that result in a ton of out of the box solutions. And we also regularly launched client-specific specific integrations. So because we're partner agnostic, we can supercharge the investments clients make in their existing martech stack by activating the data that's housed across all their vendors. [0:08:00] PJ Bruno: Can you give us an example of how that might work though? [0:08:03] Julio Lopez: Sure. So, say that you're a retailer with a loyalty program. A big part of your marketing efforts to this loyal customer base is going to be to have them redeem their points so they keep coming back. So by tapping into a loyalty platform, Movable Ink can pull in each member's unique rewards information into an email in real time, things like point balance. And taking it a step further, Movable Ink can then convert those reward points into redemption opportunities. So if we know that our reward is worth X number of points, we would only show the rewards within a specific threshold based on how many points the individual has in their account. We can then compound additional waterfall logic to surface the right loyalty content for the right individual. [0:08:49] PJ Bruno: That's fantastic. As marketers, you and I, we understand the importance of personalization and how that personalized experience can be more immersive, as what you've described. On the topic of immersive though, I've learned Movable Ink is now powering augmented reality in some client communications. Is that for real? How does that work? [0:09:12] Julio Lopez: Yeah, it's something that we're really, really excited about, basically because it's a newer way for us to deliver these highly personalized experiences in a very, very engaging way. And there's plenty of ways to delight customers, but AR has proven to be very, very successful. And I think a big reason for the success has been the easy customer experience. So a brand will simply send out an email with a call to action to the AR experience. That click on the email brings the customer to a landing page where they can flip through different background filters. And it's all done within the browser, so no app download is needed. One client example comes to mind, which was really, really popular and successful. It was Virgin Holiday's Wish You Were Here campaign. So when we powered that, the email had a CTA that brought the customer to the landing page. And in that landing page, customers were able to take caricature-like photos with Snapchat-like filters overlayed on themselves. And they were able to switch between five different destinations, so you had New York, Hollywood Las Vegas, Florida, and also a scuba diving destination. And the images that they took directly from that email experience were easily shareable to social media. So the reason why I think this was so successful is that, not only did this email serve as an entertaining and immersive experience, but it was also great brand exposure. You had all these shares going out that the brand team wasn't paying for, and it was on-brand. It was calling out what the company could do, and it resulted in sky high engagement rates across clicks, shares and dwell times. [0:10:49] PJ Bruno: That is so cool. What a cool campaign, and a fun way to engage customers too. It sounds relatively easy to implement. I would've thought it'd been a little stickier. But let's switch gears a little bit. So you sit within Movable Inks client strategy team. That's right? [0:11:04] Julio Lopez: That's correct, yes. [0:11:05] PJ Bruno: Okay, cool. And you focus on retail. That's your vertical, right? [0:11:08] Julio Lopez: That is right, yes. [0:11:10] PJ Bruno: So what types of companies are you working with? And what are some of the common trends that you're seeing in the retail vertical? [0:11:17] Julio Lopez: Yeah, so let me give you a little bit more background on that. So we went to market with the client strategy team in Q1 of this year, and spent the better half of last year planning our engagement model. My focus on retail is to work with our top 15 organizations and align directly with the executive teams that oversee all digital marketing, so not just email. So my goal is to understand what their pain points are and map out a framework for addressing those pain points. It's a very consultative approach that involves shepherding clients through their digital transformation efforts. And there's been quite few common themes across the clients that I've worked with, whether it's retail apparel, luxury retail or pure play econ specialty retailers. I think the biggest trend is how much more these marketers are being asked to do and deliver with less and less resources. I think we all know that retail margins are razor thin. And to survive, many of these organizations need to make some very tough choices to protect the bottom line. And what ends up happening is that, because the teams are understaffed, more and more focus goes to operations, since everyone is spread so thin, and the overarching strategy receives less attention. So I think it's clear to see that eventually this working model becomes unsustainable. So, smart marketers are realizing that now. A lot of the strategic frameworks that I design for my clients focus on automation, modularity, and more importantly scalability, so the few resources that remain can be deployed to focus on strategy. [0:12:56] PJ Bruno: Gotcha. [0:12:57] Julio Lopez: And then another trend that I am seeing is data cleanup. So over the years, brands, and all of us honestly, got caught up in this idea of big data. And we collected tons of user information, but we never really used it. And the way that much of that data was collected was fragmented and disorganized. So then we moved all that data to data lakes, which were mainly designed for data science teams to learn more about the customers. So, this ended up creating a different problem because the data became difficult for marketing teams to access, especially in real time. So, marketers are now focusing on getting access to their own data in real time to deliver these personalized experiences. [0:13:41] PJ Bruno: Oh wow. [0:13:42] Julio Lopez: Yeah. Now that I'm thinking about trends, I think this access to data is becoming more and more important because of a third trend, which is the exponential rise of direct to consumer brands. So, D2C brands are digitally native. So, from day one, they've had access to realtime data to personalize the user journey. So in order to compete, traditional retailers need to up their personalization game. D2C brands have set an entirely, entirely new bar for the shopper experience. They are more immersive, tailored, experiential shopping journeys, and all of that is made possible by how nimble they can be in activating that customer data. [0:14:23] PJ Bruno: That's awesome. [0:14:24] Julio Lopez: Yeah, I'm really excited about all this. I think that as we keep an eye on these trends, more and more retailers are going to shift their focus to these three things. [0:14:31] PJ Bruno: You're really in the weeds with retail. You weren't kidding. What are some other trends that you're really excited about for the upcoming months and this year? [0:14:38] Julio Lopez: Yeah. So, I guess taking it away from a little bit of the negative and more in the positive, one thing that I'm excited to see develop is the rise of experiential retail. So, the traditional retail model has always focused on the product first, but more and more consumers are looking for an engaging experience. And largely this is driven by the millennial generation. [0:14:57] PJ Bruno: Of course. [0:14:59] Julio Lopez: Their preference over experiences over physical things is a big part of their core values. So now you've got interesting concepts like DSW's Nail Bar. So I'm interested to see how retailers look to stand out from the pack with these experiential retail experiences. [0:15:14] PJ Bruno: Fantastic. Thanks for sharing those, Julio. So, in talking about trends, we have to bring it back to the core trend we started this discussion with, and all around personalization. For those brands out there looking to up their personalization game, what are some easy ways to start right now? What are some quick wins? [0:15:33] Julio Lopez: Yeah. I think a one easy win would be to leverage your website to personalize your emails. So your brand website will have a ton of information, including browse behavior, cart abandons and inventory levels. So pulling in that website behavior into your promo emails will make every touch point feel like a one-to-one communication to the customer. And we do this regularly for our clients and have seen some amazing results. [0:15:59] PJ Bruno: What kind of results are we talking about here? What do you normally see? [0:16:02] Julio Lopez: Yeah. So we tend to see big lifts in engagement and revenue. So, for example, we had Under Armour implement a reusable product recommendation module in their promo emails. And the recommendations were based off of website browse behavior. And with that module, they've seen a 132% lift in click through rates, and also a 49% lift in conversion rates. And I think another not so obvious result from this was that since the content is dynamic to the user, the email only had to be coded once, so Under Armour's saw a 75% reduction in the time it took to produce the email. [0:16:39] PJ Bruno: Oh wow. Okay. That's definitely a hugely successful campaign. And I'm sure Under Armour lauds you for your efforts there. Good stuff. [0:16:46] Julio Lopez: Yeah. [0:16:47] PJ Bruno: Julio, thank you so much for joining me today, man. [0:16:49] Julio Lopez: It's been great to be here. [0:16:50] PJ Bruno: [inaudible] Come back and see us again soon, won't you? [0:16:52] Julio Lopez: For sure. [0:16:53] PJ Bruno: And you guys come back and see us again some time too. Take care. [0:16:56]
You’re a cash-starved startup owner. You go hard after one of your big enterprise clients and they pay for a whole year of your service in advance… Just like this, without any additional questions or arrangements. This is what happened to Vivek Sharma back in the day, when his now $50+ mil ARR company MovableInk was struggling to score its first few corporate clients. But this idea to ask for a 12-MONTH ADVANCE PAYMENT didn’t come out of nowhere. Although it sounds intuitive, not a lot of startup founders will come up with it on the spot if they have no experience. Even if they do have experience, it may still not be enough. Because what matters the most is the context and the knowledge of the client. Vivek didn’t come up with the idea with himself – it was a suggestion from his sales partner at CheetahDigital, which is one of the ideas he talks about in today’s Escape Velocity episode. Vivek had no idea the client would be totally OK with this… He elaborates about the advantages of selling with other technology partners who already know the client you’re pitching to. This gives you leverage because you can get inside information as to which solutions the prospect is looking for. Watch the video below to catch Vivek’s insights firsthand. In this incredible interview, we discuss: - Sales partners to increase velocity - The Nifty Fifty - Director-level objectives for sales alignment - Relationship-based sellers vs product-based sellers - Pitching solutions to increase win-rates - Using “Crossing the Chasm” for account targeting - Startup sales to increase sales velocity- The Customer Conference- Pushing yourself out of the comfort zone Lots of SaaS juice in all of them, but I especially want to unpack for you the customer conference, as it’s one of the more neglected marketing channels. Skip to 32 minute in to hear it for yourself. Vivek has done the Customer Conference for 3 years in a row already. At first it started organically when his client services team organized dinners with prospects… Super casual, super conversational. And guess what? It had a great engagement. Because everyone likes being treated as a good friend, and your customers are no different. Seeing the good engagement with smaller scale events, Movable Ink eventually decided to do an Email Transformation Tour – visiting cities around the country to get together with customers and prospects. That’s the business equivalent of a rock band tour…pretty awesome… The tour got very good attendance, and great ROI, which the company tracked with Splash.com (and events management platform). So the natural thing for Movable Ink to do next was to organize a customer conference. You definitely need the right team to pull this off, but if you do it right – from there on, things will only grow bigger… How big? Last year, the Movable Ink Customer Conference got more than 600 marketers at a larger-than-life venue. You can imagine the value of mixing existing customers with prospects and being able to use real-life recommendations – one of the best ways to grow a brand. Obviously, to be successful, event marketing needs time to grow – you cannot simply get the crowd necessary to pull this off as a 2-month startup. But if you do things right, engage your clients, and create value, you can get leverage and acquire new customers by inviting prospects to attend. So what’s your event marketing strategy? Drop a comment below and share your insights and questions. -- Dan Martell has advised more startups than his hometown has people and teaches startup founders like you how to scale. He previously created, raised venture funding for and successfully exited two tech startups: Flowtown and Clarity.fm. You should follow him on twitter @danmartell for tweets that are actually awesome. + Instagram (behind the scenes): http://instagram.com/danmartell + Facebook (live trainings + Q&A): http://FB.com/DanMartell + Twitter (what I'm reading): http://twitter.com/danmartell
The Top Entrepreneurs in Money, Marketing, Business and Life
Vivek co-founded Movable Ink in 2010 and has led the company through rapid growth to a leading market position with 200+ employees serving 500 of the most innovative consumer brands. Through his leadership, Movable Ink is helping digital marketers embrace a visual world with intelligent creative that adapts at the moment of engagement. Prior to co-founding Movable Ink, Vivek headed Eastern North America and EMEA sales for Engine Yard. Earlier in his career, he held senior engineering roles at Blue Martini and Cisco Systems. Vivek graduated with a B.S. in Computer Science from the Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute.
Movable Ink is the leading provider of intelligent content, which enables marketers to personalize email content at the moment-of-open. Marketers use Movable Ink to provide consumers with engaging on-brand experiences to grow revenues with every customer interaction. Since 2010, consumers have engaged with over 500 billion intelligent content impressions from more than 500 leading brands, including Delta, eBay, Spotify, and The Wall Street Journal. The company is headquartered in New York City with offices in London, San Francisco, and Sydney. I talked with one of co-founders and CEO Vivek Sharma about their business and his insights.
Roxana Shershin, President and Cofounder of Digital Additive, an email marketing services agency, highlights the ability of email marketing communications to marry data, technology, and creative for truly personal marketing communications. Although email is one of the oldest forms of digital marketing, it is constantly evolving. Today, the content of an email may be altered, depending on when it is opened. (The sale that was advertised the day the email was sent may be over two days later when the customer opens the email . . . but the customer will now see the sale which is in effect on the day the email is opened due to a technology called Movable Ink.) Today's email can also be interactive, including the opportunity for customers to review products from within the body of the email. Roxana also discusses the opportunities which GDPR, General Data Protection Regulation, will afford marketers. Roxana can be reached by email at: roxana.shershin@digitaladditive.com, on her company's website at: digitaladditive.com, or on LinkedIn
Back in 2010, Steve Martocci wanted an easy way to send messages between him and his friends, not a simple prospect at the time. He created GroupMe, a group messaging platform that was acquired in 2011 by Skype a mere 370 days after its launch for $85 million. Here in 2017, Steve Martocci now leads product vision as the CEO and co-founder of Splice. With over 1 million users, Splice is rapidly gaining a reputation as the creative hub for the modern musician. The platform allows artists to collaborate on music projects via the cloud (google drive of music production) and offers hundreds of thousands of samples made by world-renowned sound engineers. Splice also gives musicians the ability to rent-to-own music production software. With everything Splice gives to artists, I invited Splice CEO, Steve Martocci onto the podcast to talk about how Splice is improving the modern musician and the way they approach making music. Martocci is also a co-founder of the short-distance aviation company BLADE, an active angel investor with investments in Fundera, TransferWise and Flatiron Health, and serves as an advisor to Movable Ink organizations where he promotes the growth of the New York City startup community.
One on One with Vivek Sharma Movable Ink by DMN One-on-One
In this episode, Seedcamp partner, Carlos, is joined by Josh Nussbaum, Principal at the New York-based venture capital firm Compound, formerly known as Metamorphic Ventures. Compound, who rebranded earlier this year while raising a new $50 million fund, invests in early-stage technology startups disrupting or enabling traditional industries in New York and across the States. Josh’s route into VC began early, spearheading Startup Week while a student at NYU and hosting hackathons for several years before joining Compound, initially as an intern. Since joining forces with David in 2012, he has become an integral part of the Compound team. Prior to joining Compound, Josh worked in business development for startup, JustDecide, a social decision-making company. Prior to JustDecide, Josh worked in digital marketing and branding at Bayard Advertising. Carlos and Josh discuss how a rebrand enabled Compound to freshen its story for the future and how the best startups tell a story about how the future is going to be. Josh meditates on learning from missed investment opportunities and how to identify patterns for future investment decisions. Also discussed is Compound’s philosophy. Raising its first fund shortly after the iPhone came out, the firm favoured investments in so-called ‘transactional media’, at the intersection of digital media and digital commerce (Indiegogo, Tapad, Movable Ink) – but is now looking more towards AI-focused startups. Learn more about New York’s tech ecosystem, the rebranding of a venture firm, and lessons from missed opportunities. Show notes from the episode: Carlos Website: www.carlosespinal.com Seedcamp: www.seedcamp.com Compound: www.compound.vc Get it on Product Hunt: https://www.producthunt.com/podcasts/seedcamp-podcast-josh-nussbaum-principle-at-compound Related bio links: Carlos: uk.linkedin.com/in/carloseduardoespinal / twitter.com/cee Josh: on medium at http://sdca.mp/2e9k6GX / twitter.com/josh_nussbaum