By Nick Windey
Nick, you know, the sport maniac and dancing king on the BeBold-team? He is our Marketing Automation Strategist who doesn’t shy away from any challenge. What does that mean and what are his day-to-day activities? We simply asked him!
What are three words that describe you?
What does your day as a Marketing Automation Strategist usually look like?
I start my day with full enthusiasm with a good espresso. Every day I hope to learn new things on my own or through my ambitious colleagues. Once I arrive at the office, or currently at my home office, I am driven by our clients. I look at their needs and challenges and I propose necessary initiatives proactively. In this manner I try to create added value and impact every day. My outlet in the evening consists of a good dose of sports, a nice meal and music por favor!
What does your job involve?
As a Marketing Automation Strategist, I examine, together with the client, how we can obtain a more integrated approach within the entire marketing strategy. We look at short-term solutions, quick wins, and the long-term effect of certain initiatives.
I try to focus mainly on the following aspects for our clients:
How did you grow into your position?
On-the-job learning, commitment & critical thinking. I think it’s important to show the right energy every day to grow further as an expert in your field. In this way, you grow not only as a professional, but also as a person. By daring to ask questions and taking responsibility, you create a think/do mentality. “It’s not a one-man show but a team effort of crazy BeBolders who are uplifting each other to the next level.”
Which part of your job as Marketing Strategist gives you the most energy?
Seeing other people grow gives me a lot of energy. Nothing is more enjoyable than working on a project where you can express your passion to your immediate colleagues and clients to see them grow in a specific expertise. That’s why the principle “together with the customer” is so important to us as BeBolders.
What’s your biggest career performance so far?
Establishing a Marketing Automation community with more than 10 countries, sharing functional and strategic expertise and initiating interaction in this community. This resulted in a self-managing Marketing Automation community where best practices were shared, and critical questions arose between countries.
Marketing Automation can take many forms. One of these main forms is ‘data automation’. Obtaining data is the starting point to get your message across to an individual in a personalized way. How do you do this? In different formats: e-mail, social media, paid advertising, organic, offline communication etc.
When using Marketing Automation, you have to look beyond the technology itself. It’s the ultimate strategy that you build around a Marketing Automation tool that can create a huge impact internally and externally. “Don’t automate to automate but only automate to create impact with your customers.”
In Marketing Automation, we can expect a lot in the coming years – both technological additions such as AI & machine learning, and the expansion of UX possibilities. Companies will have to become more and more aware of the fact that hyper-personalized content based on customer behavior will be the basis for attracting new customers, but also for keeping existing customers warm. That’s why Marketing Automation will offer added value in the relationship between data, transparency towards customers and content management.
Marketing Automation is literally and figuratively an eye-opener for many organizations. It’s not just implementing a piece of technology. It appeals to all profiles within a company (from management to order processing) and gets you thinking when using processes and systems.
Marketing is still often done from gut feeling. This is an important characteristic that you should have as a marketer, but by substantiating this gut feeling with data, you respond even better to your customer’s needs. Thus I would say that companies sometimes lack a kind of data-driven mindset. Marketing Automation can certainly act as a pivotal figure to fuel this change.
I aim to continue working with my Bold colleagues to maintain our high-quality work and services towards our customers, always look for new solutions and gaps and create added value in every sense of the word.
Besides that, I’d like to empower customers to embrace data as one of the pillar points within their marketing strategy. The ultimate goal is to grow as an individual and as a team, but definitely together with our customers. In the end, we are not just an agency, but a partner that thinks along with the customer and their ideas and processes. Challenge them were needed and help them achieve their business goals!
Don’t hesitate!