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 Rachel Cowlishaw, Associate Director of Client Strategy for North America Retail.
What’s your role on the Client Strategy team?
My role is to support a select group of clients on very specific initiatives to help them achieve their overall business objectives by leveraging Movable Ink technology.
The team is split into verticals with each client strategist specializing in a certain industry. I’m on the retail team, focused on North America accounts while my counterpart is based in the UK providing support for EMEA.
How has your background prepared you for your role?
I’ve been on the client side for the past seven years, working in the retail industry. The majority of my career has been at Neiman Marcus, a Dallas-based 113 year old luxury retailer, in which I experienced tremendous growth, holding seven positions within six years.
Most recently as Director of Personalization & CRM Marketing I pioneered the introduction of agile within marketing, standing up a cross-functional team of Marketers, Creatives, and Analytics members. Our main focus was A/B testing and scaling personalized customer experiences and omnichannel journeys across stores and online. Our team launched 60+ tests in the first 6 months, ranging from incorporating an Instagram-like feature in email to drive faster click-to-conversion, from launching an ‘NM Box’ program shipping items to customers at no initial cost.
In addition, I oversaw the CRM team responsible for email, SMS, and mobile app. Prior to COVID we were in the process of enhancing our MarTech stack, consolidating customer data and integrating vendor partners into our new CDP. That transition was in parallel to planning and designing the evolution of the existing operating model and driving widespread adoption of agile principles throughout the rest of the marketing organization.
Prior to that work I oversaw the ESP migration (from Cheetah Mail to Cheetah Marketing Suite) for all four NMG brands (Neiman Marcus, Bergdorf Goodman, Last Call, and Horchow), in addition to onboarding a variety of third-party vendors, such as Movable Ink. Through this partnership we’ve been able to drive personalization in a variety of ways — by using image personalization in email campaigns that included anything from a customer’s loyalty status to their sales associate’s contact information — utilizing geo-location to promote localized events (such as NYFW) and even most recently store closures due to COVID — and supporting creative testing with the help of live optimization.
What do you find most exciting about joining this quickly growing team?
Personally, I’m looking forward to broadening the scope of my retail experience by working with clients from a variety of retail sub-verticals outside of luxury. As an undergrad, Paco Underhill’s book ‘Why We Buy’ served as the catalyst for my strong interest and insatiable curiosity in consumer behavior, which lends itself well to a career in retail marketing — and this is a continuation along that path.
More broadly speaking, I’m incredibly excited by the work the Client Strategy team has done over the past two years, since originating as a team. In addition, I’m impressed by the smart growth that Movable Ink has experienced, expanding into web, AR, and most recently mobile app. I look forward to utilizing my past experiences to help clients continue to innovate and challenge the status quo of their digital marketing strategy.
Why are personalized marketing experiences so important for retailers?
Personalization is an incredibly convoluted term that many marketers across industries struggle with. At its core personalization is about knowing customers, anticipating their needs and wants, and offering up a seamless experience — in this case shopping experience. Easier said than done as data is often stored in disparate sources, the act of wrangling that together to create not only segmentation but also multiple versions of creative to achieve “personalization” can be an absolute nightmare for marketers, and unobtainable in many cases. Movable Ink simplifies that process by tapping into existing APIs and creating content at the moment of open, both of which lead to tremendous value when implemented at scale.
About Rachel
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 joins us from Neiman Marcus, where she oversaw Personalization and CRM Marketing across email, SMS, and mobile app. 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 MarTech stack, consolidating customer data and integrating vendor partners into a CDP. Rachel now oversees North America retail accounts for Movable Ink’s Client Strategy team.