Here at Movable Ink, we’re dedicated to helping our clients reach their business goals. So, we sat down with Naveen Wall, Associate Director of our Client Strategy Team and media and technology expert, to learn more about the team and how Movable Ink is helping our clients embrace innovation.
What’s your role on the Client Strategy team?
We’re working along with a selection of clients to address their biggest pain points and help them get forward-thinking strategies to market in an accelerated timeline. I’ve been on the client-side and have seen Movable Ink’s offering evolve from out-of-the-box use cases to the custom integrations that tech and media companies often need.
How has your background prepared you for your role?
At SiriusXM, I worked closely with Movable Ink as I developed their most visible email program, their engagement newsletter. I also supported the roll-out of their recommendations engine that displays real-time information on live ‘now playing’ content. And previously at Shutterstock, I managed CRM lifecycle strategy where we leveraged highly personalized creative to display localized content in 21 different languages. My history and experience with subscription lifecycles across media and tech companies has given me good insight into the process of navigating teams to gain internal and partner alignment to launch sophisticated use cases.
My career also began in production on the ESP side. In fact, my first interaction with Movable Ink was very early on in my career ESP side. Email has come a long way since then, but for context, this was a time where device open history was used to target specifically coded mobile and desktop versions in lieu of responsive code. I had the opportunity to partner with Movable Ink on a British Airways campaign. We leveraged a real-time weather API to promote destinations based on location. This innovation was truly groundbreaking for its time, so much so that it was recognized with an industry award.
A foundation in production has been critical in the way I approach CRM strategy. I like to think it gives me perspective on the wider impact of rolling out a program and the teams it touches, whether a strategy is viable to execute, and if it’s not, a path to deciphering how to achieve it.
What do you find most exciting about joining this quickly growing team?
The media and tech landscape is constantly developing, and brands have an increasing wealth of data that they can incorporate into campaigns. Being part of a team with a breadth of industry knowledge on how to facilitate access to that data and visualize it in real-time to drive real change is very exciting. I’m looking forward to collaborating with brands to drive that transformation and define what these elevated customer experiences can be.
When it comes to personalization and marketing in general, what challenges are unique to tech and media?
Media and tech companies are often at the forefront of one-to-one personalization. A wealth of data is captured and consumers have an expectation that their data should be leveraged to enhance their experience, especially when content is abundant and discovery is key to engagement.
Delivering a true one-to-one experience can often be very difficult to achieve. Realistically, one-to-one translates to an infinite number of versions, and in order to be able to scale that (with often bootstrapped teams) requires several things to go right. Data needs to be accessible, but the reality is it’s often siloed and batched, as opposed to accessed through a real-time API. Unintegrated tech stacks need to become integrated. The expectation is now for a cohesive, one-to-one, omnichannel, personalized journey. Creative needs to be designed to allow for flexibility in messaging variations and needs to be scalable for future integrations. Quality assurance needs to be thorough, but realistic to launch.
In addition, marketers need to be cognisant of partner approval and control content and curation where required, limiting the opportunities for full automation.
How can marketers personalize without being creepy?
For customers today, there’s an expectation that brands are collecting data, but there’s also an expectation that brands understand what’s important to each customer. Personalization should always drive value for the user. Using personalization for personalization’s sake will lead to a poor experience. Creating a campaign that identifies a customer’s location is creepy because there’s no meaning. Creating a campaign that identifies a customer’s location and displays stores of interest within their proximity is valuable. When you tap into data, you need to be driving value for the user and have their experience front of mind. If there’s no value, there’s no point.
What recommendations would you make for a client who wants to use data to develop sophisticated creative?
Start small. When looking to incorporate data into campaigns, start out with a proof of concept and iterate from there. Define a personalized reusable content module that drives true value for your customer base. Build it out and test it against a control within a campaign that makes sense. Once you’ve proven its value, you’re able to lift that same content module and insert it into any other campaigns where there’s the opportunity for it to drive further value. Reusable content modules will allow you to scale at speed with a very low level of effort whilst maintaining consistency and control over versions.
How do you think media and tech brands can stay innovative in 2020?
It’s always good practice to benchmark yourself against your industry and define and monitor best-in-class players. These are great to have and a good place to start, but the most effective innovation stems from being a change agent for your customer. Deep dive into your own customer data and define opportunities to meet and exceed their needs and innovate from there.
As a former client, this next point is a lesson I’ve taken onboard myself and aim to utilize more in the future: Use your partners as an extension of your team. They should be experts in their field with the added benefit of living the breadth of industry trends and advancements. Bring them into your programs, arm them with understanding your strategic initiatives and objectives, and challenge them to accelerate your marketing programs with you.
About the author
Prior to joining Movable Ink, Naveen worked at multiple brands that are creating innovative marketing experiences for media and tech services, including Shutterstock, Time Out North America, and Global Radio. She joins Movable Ink from SiriusXM, where she ran the brand’s engagement newsletter and supported the roll-out of their recommendations engine that displays real-time information on live ‘now playing’ content.