Welcome Victoria Archer, Assistant Director – Marketing Automation, EY UK and Ireland sharing her insights on Data-Driven Marketing, Customer Centricity & Marketing Segmentation, as part of the MarTech Thoughts series.

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

Marketing automation – I use technology to help EY (Big Four professional services) identify, group and nurture new and existing customer interactions and relationships. I send our clients personalised information to bring them new ideas and insights that might help their business grow and transform.

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

Marketo – I couldn’t do my job without it.

At your organisation, what tasks in marketing are good to automate and what tasks still need a human touch?

Some activity will always need to be human led – for example – creating marketing strategies, campaign planning and content creation/storytelling. However, automation is used across a number of different campaigns, from newsletters to complex nurture programs. Automating operational tasks (workflows etc) helps improve team efficiencies and decision making. But this is balanced with insights and relationships that come from our client teams. Ultimately, automation is only as good as the intelligence driving it – we continually review our campaigns and course correct when needed to respond to clients’ needs and dynamic market conditions.

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

• Keep it interesting with genuine test and learn tactics – we endeavour to try something new in every campaign and then promote the team’s innovations and successes internally
  
• Ongoing (formal/informal) training opportunities are really important, regardless of specialism. In a large company like EY, we benefit from a global network of colleagues for learning and mentorship

How do you monitor the effectiveness of your audience segmentation?

Engagement and conversion metrics usually speak for themselves but customer-centricity remains at the heart of all decision making. Are we adding value at every point of the buyer journey? Are we raising awareness and building trusted, long-term relationships with prospects and the companies we work with? Marketing automation strategies must operate at the intersect between marketing and commercial.

How much of your marketing is data-driven?

Quantitative data is the cornerstone of our marketing automation strategy – we use it to inform audience strategies, customer journey mapping, campaign execution, lead scoring, reporting and ongoing optimisation. Real-time analysis also helps with resource allocation – allowing us to direct team efforts to where they are going to have the biggest brand and commercial impact. This approach is combined with first-hand insights from our client-facing teams, who have deep knowledge and understanding of their clients, industry and broader trends.

What challenges do you see in processing data coming from different sources? How to overcome?

The challenge with processing any data is to ensure it’s accurate, timely and consistent…

• Data normalisation is a must. It sets the groundwork for accurate reporting and analysis, targeted campaigns (effective segmentation and personalisation) and streamlined workflows. To help combat inconsistencies in data granularity, consider establishing standardised data formats across campaigns and your wider organisation.
  
• Quality (missing, inaccurate or duplicate data) – implement data cleansing (validation and quality checks) to identify and correct errors, and avoid ineffective campaigns and client dissatisfaction.
  
• Data fragmentation and real-time data integration – campaign strategies hinge on utilising/acting on latest data. Understand differences across platforms, build them into campaign tactics and push for centralised/consolidated data.

With more consumers being conscious of their data being shared, how do you overcome the growing concern?

Compliance with data protection and privacy regulations is absolutely key. We carefully consider the amount, type and frequency of any information requested.

How important is segmentation to your personalisation strategy?

Audience segmentation is key to building any personalisation strategy.  Given the number of clients and commercial priorities, my job (and campaign success) would be near impossible without considering both in tandem.

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

Question the status quo – just because something has always been done that way, is there an opportunity to find a better solution? And in doing so – master uncertainty and failure, learn and pivot accordingly.

A big thank you to Victoria Archer, Assistant Director – Marketing Automation, EY UK and Ireland sharing her insights on Data-Driven Marketing, Customer Centricity & Marketing Segmentaiton. If you want to connect with Victoria, feel free to reach out via LinkedIn!

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Last updated: Jan 2024