Here at Movable Ink, we’re dedicated to helping our clients reach their business goals. We’ve built a growing team of marketers who have a wealth of knowledge within the key verticals we serve.
We’d like to extend a warm welcome to Becki Francis, Associate Director of Client Strategy for EMEA Retail.
What’s your role on the Client Strategy team?
My role focuses on supporting our clients’ business objectives by helping them create sophisticated CRM programs, leveraging Movable Ink technology to achieve their goals.
The team is split into verticals with each client strategist specializing in a certain industry. My role is retail-focused and is a first for the Strategy team in that I’m based in London with a focus on our EMEA accounts.
How has your background prepared you for your role?
I’ve worked on e-commerce retail teams for the past seven years, primarily managing email, app, and loyalty programs. My career began on the agency side, where I crafted and built lifecycle programs for a range of retailers, from small startups to household name brands. I then moved on to lead the CRM team at House of Fraser before most recently heading up digital marketing and CRM for a London-based beauty brand.
My history and experience working within retail marketing teams has given me good insight into the typical pain points retailers face. During my time at House of Fraser, I worked closely with Movable Ink to drive process efficiencies and 1:1 personalization at scale through our email channel. Historically, a big sticking point for the CRM team had been the length of time and number of resources required to produce a single email. When you multiplied that by the number of segments for loyalty customers, gender splits, and more, the process became extremely time-consuming.
We needed a way to make email production more efficient. Movable Ink helped us automate so much of our production process and allowed us to personalize on a scale that traditional segmentation could not. I’ve been a big advocate of the platform ever since, so switching to join the team seemed like an obvious next step.
What do you find most exciting about joining this quickly growing team?
The opportunity to bring my own experiences of navigating the challenges of retail to our clients. We work with such an incredible variety of brands, so the breadth of projects I’ll be involved in is really exciting.
I am also very excited to work with such an amazing team. Movable Ink puts a huge focus on creating a supportive and collaborative culture where all ideas and inputs are valued. My onboarding has taken place remotely due to the current need to work from home, but I already feel like part of the family. It’s inspiring to work with such innovative, passionate people.
Why are personalized marketing experiences so important for retailers?
Personalization is important for retailers because it’s increasingly important to their customers. As consumers, we’ve come to expect intuitive, frictionless shopping experiences, both online and in-store. As retailers strive to deliver on that expectation, 1:1 personalization becomes crucial.
Above all, personalization strategies have to drive value for the customer. Shoppers are happy to share their data if and when it is used to create an easier shopping experience. Using a customer’s first name in a subject line doesn’t add any value if the content of the email is irrelevant and untimely. By contrast, an email that reminds the customer of products they browsed last week, highlights stock availability, and shows recommendations based on previous purchases facilitates an easy and enjoyable shopping experience. Retailers should have a clear understanding of what data they are collecting and how they are going to use it to bring value to their customers.
About Becki
Prior to joining Movable Ink, Becki worked client-side in a variety of marketing and CRM roles within apparel and cosmetics retailers. She joins from Revolution Beauty, where she managed the brand’s digital marketing activity and global retention strategy. Prior to that, Becki led the CRM team at House of Fraser, focussing on the rollout of a series of highly automated lifecycle programs.