Welcome Heather Hurd, CMO of Dusk Marketing, who shares her insights into the power of authentic storytelling, the role of automation, and how to maintain a seamless omnichannel experience. This is part of the MarTech Thoughts series.

How do you describe your job to a 5-year-old?

You know how sometimes you go to a store to go shopping? Or we buy something on the computer, and it comes to our house? Or someone comes to paint our walls? When we do those things, we pay money, right? Well, there are a lot of really good people in the world who make things or do things for other people, but sometimes it’s hard for them to make enough money because people don’t know which house painter to choose or who to buy shoes from. My work is helping stores and businesses tell really good stories about who they are and what they do. That way, just like when you read a book you love, people get interested in the story and they understand better why they should give their money to these businesses. 

What is the one marketing platform/app/solution you can’t live without? Why?

As a small organization with no permanent designer on board (yet) we love Canva for the way it helps create engaging graphics for our social media presence without putting too much strain on us to learn Photoshop (yet). 

Currently, what are you primarily looking for in your digital marketing efforts? Awareness, engagement, conversion, or retention? Why?

Our digital efforts are currently focused on the awareness and engagement stages. We’ve been successfully operating on a word-of-mouth model for a while now, and while we don’t plan to move away from that strategy, we are looking to grow our pipeline by pushing more effort into our awareness and engagement stages. Of course, we’ll keep a lot of effort focused on retention all the time, since retention is a much more cost-effective way to maintain growth. 

At your organization, what marketing tasks are suitable for automation, and which tasks still need a human touch? Is there any part of the marketing process that includes AI?

Automation should be used to take mundane, manual, painful tasks off the plates of skilled strategists and creatives so that they have more room to do the work they’re so good at. For us, that means keeping automation focused on things like creating schedules, producing summaries, starting brainstorming topics, and other quick-turn tasks while allowing the team to focus on ideation, creativity, and strategy.

How do you keep your team motivated to get the best out of them during challenging economic times with additional external pressure?

Motivating marketing teams is all about openness and communication. When your team knows that they can always rely on you to be honest and clear, and that you have their backs when the chips are down, they’ll work closely together and keep you informed on what you need to know too. Trusting each other is the key to staying motivated and productive when things are tough. 

Please share with us one of the best campaigns you have seen recently or your all-time favourite campaign, and tell us why.

My all-time favourite campaign was the time we ended up using fax machines to reach otherwise fully unengaged audience segments. A client working with construction companies was having a tough time connecting to the owners of these companies – emails went unread, calls unanswered, texts ignored or blocked. We did an office tour with one of their more responsive clients and happened to notice a working (and still occasionally used) fax machine. In a fit of creativity (or desperation?), we decided to try outreach via fax. A little market research revealed that nearly every construction office still had a working fax machine, and the channel was so underused that it felt like a novelty. Engagement from the faxes went through the roof, and by the time the novelty wore off, word of mouth was creating a new wave of buzz that kept the company growing. 

What are the key challenges when implementing new technologies or platforms for the first time in your company, and do you have any suggestions for making the process smoother?

Implementing a new technology or platform usually meets resistance for one of two reasons. Either the organization has change fatigue, in which case leadership has a responsibility to slow down and really look at whether now is the right time for another change. Or the people being asked to actually work day to day in the change aren’t bought in, in which case leaders need to help them understand the benefits, challenges, and plans for a smooth rollout. In either case, we find the easiest path to implementation is open communication from consideration through onboarding, including conversations with the teams who will be working in the new tech most, as well as robust support and training plans to help people navigate issues as they come up.

How do you connect, engage, and build a persistent relationship with your customers? Is the omnichannel experience consistent?

A smooth, consistent, and engaging omnichannel experience is a must for keeping customers engaged and happy. We have to focus on creating a really strong customer experience, and that can only happen when we’re telling an honest and captivating story in the same way across all of our channels. Customers need to feel like they relate to us, and like they’re seeing something familiar from one channel to the next, in order to create the kind of lasting emotional connections that drive long-term growth. For us, and for our clients, that means really putting the work into marketing fundamentals, brand identity building, and content strategy so that we’re starting with a strong foundation. We maintain it across channels and audience segments by creating comprehensive brand guidelines and messaging frameworks that help internal teams understand how to connect everything back to that central story. 

What’s the best advice someone has ever given you?

Be as honest as you can, as often as possible. Authenticity resonates everywhere, and while sometimes it may really feel like you’re losing out on opportunities by insisting on staying true to your values, in the long term you’ll find that a commitment to just being you will attract a stronger community and more relevant opportunities to help you grow.

Any fun facts about yourself that you want to share?

I’m an avid reader, a tattoo enthusiast, and an immigrant from America to the Netherlands. I’m learning Dutch and also trying to revive a decade-old memory of Italian.

Are there any questions you’d like to ask to other MarTech enthusiasts?

When it comes to your organization’s brand and content marketing, what’s missing?

A big thank you to Heather Hurd, CMO of Dusk Marketing, for sharing her expert insights on the power of authentic storytelling, the role of automation, and how to maintain a seamless omnichannel experience. If you want to connect with Heather, feel free to reach out via LinkedIn!

See more MarTech Thoughts interview pieces here!

Last updated: October 2024