Zach Thompson: Hey, welcome back to the Marketer Exchange. In today's episode, I'm talking with Nora von Arnim. She's a Strategy Director at the global marketing agency, RAP, where she focuses on customer experience, CRM, and personalization. We talk about what strong strategy actually looks like within agencies, how you can use data without losing empathy for your customer, and what early career marketers need to get right. Let's get into it. Nora von Arnim, thank you so much for joining the Marketer Exchange. I really appreciate you coming today. It's good to have you here.
Nora: Thanks for having me.
Zach Thompson: why don't we start just introduce yourself and tell us a bit about the work that you do.
Nora: Yeah, ⁓ I'm a strategy director at RAPP. ⁓ I'm from Germany. I moved to New York about three and a half years ago. I've been with RAPP for six years now. ⁓ RAPP has been really great to work for. ⁓ RAPP is a marketing agency that really looks at building stronger relationships with customers using data, creative and ⁓ strategy. And I'm an experienced strategist. So we do everything kind of customer experience development. ⁓ We try to understand the customers, the data that we get and really design the most optimized customer experience. So everything customer relationship management is what we do. We look at all sorts of channels. Email is our primary channel, but we look at direct mail, at SMS, apps. ⁓ website optimizations as well. we work with digital ⁓ banner ads and paid social too. So really across the spectrum, but really directly talking ⁓ to the consumer there.
Zach Thompson: OK, so for folks that don't know much about agency life, where does strategy sit within does that work in connections with other teams and working with other folks? How does that work within RAPP?
Nora: Yes, so ⁓ the strategy team is really kind of in the middle a little bit. We have the ⁓ client services, or also called the account team, that are directly responsible for the relationship with the clients. And so they're directly tuned in with the clients sort of on a daily basis, ⁓ finding out what projects need to happen, working on that relationship and delivering that back to us. ⁓ If a brief comes in, they would come to us and we would start working on a project. ⁓ So that would be funneled through them. And then we would do our research, you know, come up with a strategy and work together with the marketing sciences team in collaboration to come up with that solution. ⁓ And once we have sort of dug into the data, looked at everything that the clients have sent us, looked at the current customer experience, then we would come up with a brief together. So the marketing sciences team and strategy, but predominantly strategy with the marketing sciences input. And we would then go to the creative team to brief them. So we sort of take it from the client services team, work with marketing sciences together, and then we give it to creative who then comes up with ⁓ the end product. So we're kind of the middleman that gets the project, ⁓ builds the strategy and direction for it, and then guides. the rest of the team, so the creatives to come up with the copy and visuals for it.
Zach Thompson: Okay, great. You've come up through the ranks at Wrapp too. So you haven't always been a strategy director. You were a junior strategist, I guess you might call it, and then you've come up through the ranks now, a strategy director. Tell us a little bit about how that role has changed and going from working on individual briefs for one client and now looking at the whole customer journey.
Nora: Yeah, it's been great. I've been very lucky working at RAPP, starting as a junior strategist. I came straight out of university. I had a placement year and other experiences, but RAPP is really the biggest chunk of my experience. And so I got really lucky. I'm still here and I've been able to grow so much. It's changed a lot over the years, for sure. When I started as a junior strategist, I would sort of work on one-off briefs. So I would write a creative brief for an email for I think at the time it was Virgin Media ⁓ and to work on just single deliverables. So writing that creative brief, briefing the creatives and seeing that creative all the way through. So really single touch points that could be offer emails or, you know, things like that. And then as I got more and more senior in my role, I would work on larger strategic initiatives, which now can take, you know, up to three, four months at the time. So now we really look at the holistic customer experience. So I've really started to work with a tool that we call an affinity analysis. It looks like an infinity loop. ⁓ And we call it the affinity loop, where we map the whole customer experience from start to finish. So the path to purchase, the path to loyalty on the right. And we will look at mapping the whole customer experience for our clients and optimizing it end to end. looking at all channels, looking really kind of diving deep into the data. And these projects can take several months. We would then uncover things like, you know, the onboarding experience is terrible for your brand. So we need to optimize that. And then we would slate that within our fiscal year planning as the top priority and start working on that and coming up with that strategy, even though sometimes it's maybe, you know, 10 touch points, which sounds like something that you could quickly do that can take kind of a few months to work internally and then also externally to get it kind of approved and have lots of different teams feed into it. those are sort of more complex initiatives. ⁓ And also now I work with the inter-agency teams. So we've got other agencies ⁓ sometimes within Omnicom, sometimes outside of Omnicom that we work with. And so we would have to come up with integrated strategies. So we would work with the media planning and buying agency as well. to work on integrating digital and CRM and that would be more complex too, because you've got different stakeholders there. yeah, so projects have become more complex and sort of longer reaching over time. ⁓ But yeah, so it's changed quite a lot.
Zach Thompson: Yeah, it sounds like it. So tell me a little bit more about the research side of the customer journey work that you guys do. How are you gathering that data? it focus groups? What are you doing to gather that data about the customer journey?
Nora: Yeah, so it really depends on the project. We have a seam called CXI, who are our sort of customer intelligence team ⁓ that we can tap into for larger projects. So they will do things like primary research for us. ⁓ I've done this a couple of times for clients. ⁓ And they are also in charge of our research tools. So we've got a huge suite of ⁓ research tools, things like work and Mintel, eMarketer, things like that. We've got subscriptions too that we can kind of dig into and use at our leisure. and things like brand watch as well, social listening tools. ⁓ So we will use those to do a lot of our research and then we will use our own clients data, right? Often ⁓ our clients have done their own research internally that they share with us. ⁓ In good cases, they have a sophisticated team that can show us sort of what that experience looks like. And sometimes we have to do a lot of desk research to supplement what. what they can't give us. it really depends on what's available from the clients. But we've got expertise in some verticals like pharma and automotive, where we've gathered quite a lot of Intel and research over the years that we kind of always continuously build on. ⁓
Zach Thompson: All right, you referred to yourself earlier as an experienced strategist. So tell me a little bit more, like for somebody who's hearing that for the first time, what does that mean in practice? What do do as an experienced strategist?
Nora: Yeah, so experience might sound like it's something like we're doing some sort of pop-up in person, but it's not really an in-person experience. It's the online experience. We call it experience strategy because it's that direct customer experience that we're influencing. So we're not building the ⁓ huge ads that you see on the side of the road or the TV ads. We're direct to the customer. ⁓ And so we're really kind of building that online experience and direct experience for them. So we will look at not just the emails that we're sending out, but all of the other channels that are part of that. So we'll look at the whole ecosystem, you know, including the things that they will get from apps, the SMS, the direct mail. We will also kind of talk to sometimes if it's, you know, in automotive, the dealer, what were they getting from the dealer? What are they getting from other sort of levels within the organization and try and align that experience. ⁓ So we don't just look at one channel as the full experience, but we look at all of the channels and how that kind of forms the full experience for them. We will also, sometimes for example, we've talked to the call center team and asked what complaints have come in, right? So as we develop like a welcome onboarding journey, for example, we would take that into account. We would talk to that team. And if we know that, you people are really struggling with a certain issue, we would try and address that within our experience. So we want to make sure we look at each channel. what problems have come up, where is there any sort of barriers that we need to address within the channels we can influence? So yeah.
Zach Thompson: As you guys are putting different strategies together, and I mean, I would imagine you hear a lot of pitches for strategy and put together a lot of pitches for strategy. What makes a strategy feel strong to you versus something that maybe is just a good presenter or something that is well presented? What's the difference between that and a good strategy?
Nora: Yeah, I think sometimes strategy can be a lot of smokes and mirrors and just kind of fancy words without the data behind it, right. So a good strategy is really something that's been thoughtfully crafted with, ⁓ with lots of teams in mind. So ⁓ what I've always heard from our chief strategy officer ⁓ is that we, as strategists should always listen more than we speak. It's really about listening and about doing the research and talking to the different teams. A good brief should never be built just by a strategist. It should happen in collaboration with the other teams. So for me, if I know I've spoken to my marketing sciences colleagues and I've spoken to my creative colleagues and to my account colleagues and have taken their kind of point of view on board, then I know I have the different lenses and ways that they look at it in there. And then to really use the data that we have in the right way. looking at our customer data that the marketing sciences team can access and seeing what we can see and hear. Then looking at the research and backing up our approach with what we can see is happening ⁓ in the market. ⁓ So yeah, really not working on your own in your own little box and just going away and doing it by yourself. But it's really that exchange. It's really a team effort because every team comes in with their own perspective on things. So I think it's important to make it a collaborative effort, because otherwise the strategies tend to not have legs if it's just developed in your own little bubble.
Zach Thompson: OK, good. yeah, so supporting your claims with data, making sure that you have data to support what you're saying, and then also this collaborative effort across teams. Awesome. Yeah, that's so good. ⁓ What do you think are some of the things that people still misunderstand about customer experience strategy?
Nora: I think that for, I think a lot of the times, we would look at kind of some of the channels maybe in silos. And I think that's kind of not looking at it as a full, ⁓ for the full kind of lens. ⁓ we sometimes have clients who are very focused on the channel that they can impact, ⁓ without kind of thinking about all of the other touch points that will come in. Right. So just because a specific team is only responsible for these emails. doesn't mean that that's the only thing that a customer sees. And I think we need to really be aware of the fact that customers don't see ⁓ these emails as a separate stream than the legal emails that come through and the ads that they see on TV, right? All of it is ⁓ a kind of together builds the perception of the brand. And so we can't look at things in those silos. It's really not a good customer experience if we're treating them as separate from each other.
Zach Thompson: Yeah, I know one of the things that we've talked about previously was around personalization. That was something that you seem to get very excited about. What are the things that are exciting you about personalization right now?
Nora: Yeah, I think we have access to so much great data that sometimes is not used in the right way or to its full potential. So we really do a lot of with personalization at WRAP. I think there's a lot of potential to really tap into people's things that people enjoy outside of our brand, right? So for example, we worked on an automotive company where we realized that a of the customers love to golf. And so we did a test with Golf Creative and it performed really well because people felt like, you know, it resonated with them. They connected. beyond just looking at a demographic, ⁓ but looking at other of the interests that connect you has really kind of helped. And so we've done a lot of fun things with integrating those things and seeing people as full humans that have experiences and hobbies and joys outside of the brand. and not just looking at you for your gender, household, income, location, because that really doesn't show us the full person. So when we have access to that data, which we can look at the customer data and we can append it with Experian data, then we can find some pretty fun nuggets and it gets a lot more interesting than to just talk about some generic things. ⁓ And also in terms of personalization, thinking about the right moment in time. So at RUP, we always try to talk to people in the right moment, in the right channel, in the right way. And so life cycle planning, I think I touched on with that affinity analysis that we do is really important, right? So realizing that someone who is, for example, an automotive has come to the end of their lease ⁓ in a newsletter, they might not want to hear about ⁓ certain subjects that you would talk about with a new owner, right? A new owner might want to hear a little bit more about their current car. They want to learn about the brand. ⁓ But someone who's come to the end of their lease, yeah, they will be open to an offer of a new car versus someone who just bought is like, why are you sending me an offer, right? So personalization in that sense is really important because you can really annoy customers if you get it wrong in the beginning ⁓ and risk people to unsubscribe and stop engaging if they feel like you're not really listening to them. ⁓ So there's a lot to be gained by being personal in the right ways. It's also fine line, right? It can become creepy. So you need to find the right level of personalization so that people ⁓ are receptive to it.
Zach Thompson: Yeah, I mean, there are a lot of good ways that you just mentioned about how data can be used. And we've seen this big push toward big data since the 20 teens, really. It's been around for a while. And we've seen this proliferation of data now. It's everywhere. We're almost drowning in it. What are some of the things, the example you just mentioned about a car lease, and I just got a new car, so I don't need a new one. I've had that happen to me recently where I've taking my car in for servicing and got an email within the next week saying, hey, you're due for a service. Like, no, I just had one. So what do you think brands are still getting wrong about personalization? Why is it? Because we've been talking about it for a decade at least.
Nora: Yeah. ⁓ Yeah, I think having a lot of data doesn't necessarily mean you're understanding it, right? I think a lot of people, ⁓ we look at what about the action, we look at what people did, but not maybe why they did it. And the reasons behind it, the mindsets, the intentions. So sometimes I think we come to conclusions too quickly, and we don't fully look at the we don't look at the full picture. ⁓ And so I think that's where precision and empathy comes in, which is important for us here. So we really try to make sure that we do talk to people in the right moments, in the right way, and connect with them across the journey, across the channels in those manners. ⁓ Yeah, I think a lot of the time, we still make broad stroke assumptions and just focus on the wrong things and really get it wrong.
Zach Thompson: Yeah, so it's not just about having the data, but being able to use it well, right? ⁓ You mentioned previously too, precision with empathy at RAPP. So this is something that you guys are focused on, right? What does this look like in the work that you're doing on a daily basis?
Nora: Yeah. Yeah, I think ⁓ it's really, it's really important that we work with our marketing science colleagues together, because they have so much access to all of the data. And so precision with empathy is really only possible if we if we work closely with them, and we keep our pulse on what how customers are reacting. we will have bi weekly meetings where we look at the results for recent campaigns and look at how things performed to try and make sure that we can continuously optimized. So we will have test learn plans ⁓ for clients to sort of keep testing and learning and try and get better with how we target people in the right way. And for every big campaign, you know, we will look at ⁓ certain ways to segment and personalize to become even better in the way that we talk ⁓ to people. ⁓ We ⁓ have very modular approach and how we look at emails. ⁓ So we will have a single email that you might receive, but I will receive a very different version of it with dynamic modules that pull in based on your behavior. So we do a lot of that ⁓ where we make it easier for our clients. We don't have 16 versions of an email, but we have one template that flows in different modules depending on your behavior. ⁓ So that's really where we try and be as precise as we can by understanding. what our customers need at the different stages of their life cycle with us.
Zach Thompson: I go back to that answer you earlier about the golf ⁓ example where the automotive company and you discovered that were responding really well to the golf creative? How did you come up with that? How did you identify that they were responding to that or that that idea might even work?
Nora: Yeah, so we had run tests before based on demographics ⁓ that just didn't resonate as well. And so we looked at the data and we looked at ⁓ so we looked at their customer data appended with experience and we looked at what their hobbies were. And golf and skiing came out as things that resonated. So ⁓ we thought it would be worth a test. We would never kind of roll the rule. us out of the whole base, we would always do ⁓ test to see if it performs well ⁓ a generic creative. ⁓ And so yeah, we did that golf test and it performed really well. Yeah, was within the copy, within the visuals, ⁓ not too much, not too little, but ⁓ into that hobby and it performed well. And since then, we've been trying to roll that out across other clients or depending on the season as well to see where we can incorporate it. I think with that, we also need to be careful because you don't want to be constantly now sending them golf, golf, golf, right? You're not a golf company, trying to figure out the right moments to lean into their hobbies, I think is important ⁓ so that you don't risk fatigue with that as well.
Zach Thompson: So secondary data through Experian. And then you saw that this is a potential opportunity here, ran some tests to see if it was going to be effective and then rolled it out more broadly. That's really interesting. ⁓ So we'd be remiss to not talk about AI in this space. So talk to me a little bit about how ⁓ AI works within strategy work and how you guys are using it and maybe how you feel like you shouldn't be using it.
Nora: Yeah. Yeah, and AI has really changed things. I think I'm quite glad that I started out as a junior strategist, learning everything from the ground up, because I think now a lot of those, a lot of the things that I used to do manually can be done with AI. ⁓ We really use it as a partner, not as someone to do our job, right. So ⁓ at the onset of a brief, I always find it very useful to look at the client brief through the lens of AI and pull out the key opportunities there. ⁓ We use it for creative brief writing as well. ⁓ So we will work with the AI to come up with some of the, just some of the phrasing for the creatives as ⁓ well. We will come up with the ultimate strategy, but there's a lot of ⁓ our job is writing PowerPoint decks, right? And so AI can be really helpful in phrasing things in the right way and having you, you know. turn this thing that you were thinking about into ⁓ a really succinct bullet point. So really helps to just make us better storytellers and make sure we're really hitting the nail on the head with how we're talking about things. ⁓ I think a few years ago, it would take a lot longer to build a PowerPoint deck. And I think now ⁓ lot of the real kind of crafting of the net of the language ⁓ can really be helped through AI. So we use it a lot for that. We don't use it to do research. We have access to a lot of great research tools, and we cannot trust AI to do that work for us. It can sometimes point you in the right direction, but we really don't want to want to leverage any sort of sourcing from there. ⁓ But it definitely helps as a partner to try and figure out the narrative that you're creating.
Zach Thompson: So you said that as a young strategist or a junior strategist, you're grateful that you had to learn some of these things manually and to do some of these things manually. What are some of those things that you feel like junior strategists today should be learning to do manually rather than leaning too heavily on AI?
Nora: Yeah, I think it's important to learn how to write a creative brief without having an AI tool. ⁓ Because it'll really teach you to think more deeply about things. I think it teaches you critical thinking, I think AI has taken away the ability to or you know, the need to critically think about something yourself and just ask the AI what it thinks. So and I don't think you can be a strategist without being able to be a critical thinker. So I think relying on it heavily can really shoot people in the foot later on. ⁓ and even relying on it, you know, while studying too much. I think you should really be able to sit with your own thoughts about a subject and kind of figure out which way you want to go with it. ⁓ I think a lot of that is now just, yeah, you can just ask AI and it'll give you an answer. But ⁓ coming up with that yourself, I think is really important ⁓ because that will really make you a good strategist.
Zach Thompson: You've ⁓ stayed within WRAP. You've moved up pretty quickly, and you've moved up through the ranks, progressed a lot within one agency, within one organization. That seems to me to be fairly unique these days. People tend to move around a lot. So it seems interesting to me that you've stayed within WRAP and progressed like you have. What do you think has mattered most for you as you've progressed? And what has helped you the most as you've progressed through the organization?
Nora: Yeah, I do think it's quite unique that I've stayed for so long. ⁓ I think ⁓ I was really lucky to work with some great people ⁓ over the years. And I think ⁓ working with the right managers and mentors really makes a huge difference. I've always had great cheerleaders that have supported me in my efforts. ⁓ what's helped me is that I've always been, I think my main drive is constant growth and learning. And I've always felt like I got those experiences that rub really well. I've always kind of I, there's, you know, the affinity analysis tool, for example, was something that I really enjoyed working on and became someone that's done a lot of those. So I started then, when I moved to New York, coaching some of the colleagues here on how to use those tools and things like that. I've always put myself forward as someone that doesn't just work in their own little corner and clocks off, but I've always been someone that wants to teach the team, work with the team. I've always just been very involved with the team and ⁓ I've never seen this just as a job where I go home and forget about it. I've always enjoyed just being really involved and improving things and pushing our leadership teams to do things differently or set up a call for these things or, know, ⁓ run like AI sessions where we've taught the rest of the team how to use it and things like that. I think I've always just been like a very collaborative person in that way and proactive. And I think that always is appreciated because I think a lot of people kind of, you know, come in, go home. ⁓ ⁓ me, it's always been more than that. And also ⁓ offering me the opportunity to come to New York was was huge. And ⁓ I've loved kind of that change. It's a it's a big difference ⁓ to kind of move across the ocean like that. And so that's also ⁓ is a reason why I've kind of stayed and why it's still I still feel like I'm learning because it almost feels like a different agency when you move to a new city.
Zach Thompson: Absolutely. So collaboration with others, work ethic, and also having supportive managers and leadership. But I'd imagine that you've had to push hard for your own progression too. So what does that look like in practice as you've pushed hard for making it happen for yourself?
Nora: Yeah, I think I'm lucky because I'm quite extroverted and confident in the workplace. And that's definitely helped me. ⁓ I have definitely not never been handed a promotion just because I sat back and smiled. I've always had to, you know, go to my managers, my leaders and advocate for progression, ask for the job, ask for the for more money. And sometimes those are challenging conversations. They're not always easy and it can be very intimidating. but I've always pushed for it. I would always have a list ready of all the reasons why I deserve that promotion, why I've worked hard. ⁓ always been someone that volunteers for things and it's kind of proactive as well, or, you know, working on pitches and things like that. So I've always showed that I'm, I'm a team player and I put in the work, but also that I want that recognition and, ⁓ sort of back. But yeah, you do have to speak up. You do have to. put yourself out there, you can't expect those things to just come because you've been at a company for a certain amount of years. That's just not how it works. So yeah, it comes with a lot of work for sure.
Zach Thompson: What does some of those conversations look like when you go to your manager, your leadership, and you say, you know, you've got your list of things that you've done well or over the last however long. What does that conversation look like? What do some of the negotiations look like?
Nora: Yeah, so every year we would write like a self reflection report ⁓ with a number of questions where we would reflect on how we've improved and developed. ⁓ And so that in itself helps as a starting point to try and figure out, ⁓ yeah, you know, like I have actually made quite a lot of progress. I've done all these things. And it kind of helps you also feel confident that yeah, you do deserve this promotion as you sort of look back because I think sometimes you can forget how much you achieve within a year. And then it's a continuous conversation with your managers, it would never be something that just gets brought up once and it comes out of nowhere. ⁓ It's sort of a conversation that you know, you know, after a certain amount, you you would be eligible for it. So there would be conversations before the promotion cycle would even begin like four months prior to say, you know, I would really like to go for this promotion. And you can kind of fill out with your manager if that's something that's the cards for this time and something you should push for. If you have a good relationship with your manager, which is really important, you know, then you can start crafting as well. Like, the reasons why, because they also have to go to their manager to push for your promotion. So ⁓ it's kind of a long game, right? It's not just like a one-off negotiation. It's kind of something that develops over a few months. And yeah, it's kind of that. ⁓ And yeah, sometimes you, you know, I've brought up the salary that people have in other agencies before and how much I think I'm worth and things like that, right. And say how much, know, you bring to the team and the things that you are in charge of, even though you might not have that level. you know, just kind of being confident about what you bring to the table and what you bring to the company and hoping that that gets seen. Sometimes it's out of your manager's or manager's manager's control because, you know, we work for big holding companies and Sometimes things are impossible, but yeah, I've always tried to push for things because there's nothing more frustrating than missing a cycle opportunity and being really angry at yourself that you didn't go for it. yeah.
Zach Thompson: So it sounds a little bit like a similar approach to pitching ideas to a client, bringing the data. having data related to what other agencies are paying people who are in a similar position to you. Also having data about the projects that you've been working on and what you'd have been able to contribute and what that's generated for that business maybe. So having data to support the claims that you're making about what you do, right? Very good. So for somebody early in their career,
Nora: Definitely. Yeah, for sure. Yeah.
Zach Thompson: kind of touched on it here, how you've done this, but any advice for people who are early in their career about how they can show initiative, ⁓ just how they can get more involved and ⁓ the business grow.
Nora: Yeah, think ⁓ I personally also want to say I my work life balance is very important to me. ⁓ And I think that, you know, when you're early on in your career, working late is not the thing that's going to cut it in some companies, maybe that will show that you're very dedicated. But it can also show that you have very poor time management. So I wouldn't just rely on showing up and being there late and being the last person to leave the office. I think the most important thing is really talking to other people. and talking to people across teams and really like shadowing other people and reaching out and saying, hey, you I know we don't work on a project together, but I would really love a 30 minute chat to hear about this thing that you guys do. And I heard you work on this thing and how can I just like see what you guys are doing and learn a little bit. So I think really putting yourself out there across the teams and show interest and have those conversations. ⁓ you know, show that you're available for supporting on pitches to shadow how those happen. You know, when you're a junior, you don't usually get involved at the forefront in pitches, but you can say, you can offer yourself up to do some research for it and shadow and all those things will help you so much because you will gain experience. You will start to understand early how those things work and you will really show that you're proactive. You're showing initiatives, you're there offering to do small team share outs. ⁓ You know, in most agencies, there's sort of team meetings where someone can share work or teach a tool or do things like that. Putting yourself forward for those things is always really helpful too. ⁓ Or even social initiatives, you know, if you're really someone who cares about the culture of the agency, ⁓ helping organize that I think always helps too. So ⁓ those things don't have to be things that you do outside of your work or to do on your weekend, but really just in the day to day. in how you interact with people. think really, yeah, not sitting in the office with your headphones on, not talking to anyone, that that's going to be difficult and also will make your job feel more intimidating. But actually just having conversations, I think is is honestly the best way. And that's how I've done it as well.
Zach Thompson: It's such an important piece of advice. mean, it can be very difficult for new grads or people new to an agency or new to a business, maybe more introverted than others. It's such a hard thing for people to get over sometimes, but it's so important. mean, it's missed opportunities every day when you're not doing that,
Nora: Yeah. Yeah, and start with people that you, you know, are your age that ⁓ are similar level in a different team that you can talk to, to start building confidence, you know, it doesn't have to be the head of department, right? It can be really people on your level that you start to learn from until you feel more confident to speak to others. So, ⁓ yeah, definitely important.
Zach Thompson: Yeah, it's good advice, good advice. So you're from Germany, also lived in London and now live in New York. How has living and working across those three different cultures, pretty distinct cultures, how has that shaped your career?
Nora: I think it's really interesting. ⁓ I was kind of terrified to move to New York because I thought, ⁓ my God, this is going to be so different from London. But actually, honestly, London and New York have so much in common in the way that they are so multicultural and just so much arts and culture. It's been really fun. ⁓ I think it's helped me understand the different consumer environments for sure. ⁓ I think in Europe, with GDPR, certain things are, you personalization wise are not possible in the same way that they are possible here. And there's a lot more pharma advertising that happens in the US compared to Europe. So a lot of things have been different there. I think it's really helped me look at a broad spectrum of clients. And it's been interesting even just working across clients that we had in the UK and working for them here. The work culture is definitely very different and you you learn to kind of adapt to the American way but ⁓ Yeah, it's been it's been fun. think it's going to help me in the long term because I can really kind of adapt to the different markets and understand consumers across across the globe better now, I think.
Zach Thompson: been your favorite place to live and work?
Nora: it's really tough. I love London and I love New York. think they're both so unique. ⁓ love living in New York right now. I definitely ⁓ lived in London for eight years and it was so fun to live there and ⁓ loved the job there and the agency. But for right now, New York is incredible and we have some really fun clients that we work with and I wouldn't I wouldn't change it right now. New York is where I want to be.
Zach Thompson: Nice, nice. Always a good feeling to be where you want to be. That's always a good thing. Very good. So as you are hiring or training new marketers, this is kind of getting back to some advice for new marketers or folks who are about to graduate. What is it that you wish they understood about agency life and about strategy within agency?
Nora: For sure. ⁓ I think the most important thing is that you really need to know that you're a storyteller as a strategist. ⁓ And so your strategy can be as sound as you think it is, but if that doesn't come across, it's completely lost. So the most important thing really is to learn to tell a story and to try and craft your slides, your pitch deck in a way that is captivating, right? And that feels supported by data and feels obvious and clear. Sometimes we will have people, you know, we will teach we will brief creative and it will just not land with them and they won't understand the brief, they won't quite get it, it won't land with them. And even though that's an internal team, you know, you, they still need to believe that that's the right way to go and they will push back if they don't agree with how you've written the brief. So really being clear is important. I think one thing that I did when I studied was I would always write the 10 % above the word limit and I would really struggle to be succinct and that's really something I've tried to get better at. Always, you know, I used to build decks of like 50 slides and you lose clients halfway through, it's just too much, right? And now we really try and reduce it to like 10, 15 slides, you know, say it in way less than you have to, you know, like really moving slides to the appendix and... upleveling things and not having slides with long texts on it that you have to like take ages to digest, but really like at its essence, what do you need to deliver? So that storytelling, I think that's the key thing that you need to learn.
Zach Thompson: That's really good. All right, so storytelling, are there other capabilities that you feel like graduates or new marketers you wish they had as they come into work?
Nora: I think it's important to get very comfortable getting super deep into the data and into the research. I think you have to be a bit of a nerd and enjoy digging deep without falling into rabbit holes. And I think that skill of trying to figure out what's the right data point to go after, which what's coming up the most, right? Not looking at one article and saying, okay, cool, this is it, we're going to go away with it. But really, looking at different data sources and contrasting, comparing and seeing what am I seeing across the board here? What keeps bubbling up to the surface? So when it comes to that, you really can't be lazy. You have to really look at the different sources and try and see what's key theme that I'm getting from this. And so I think that's an important skill. And that's something that I think sometimes gets lost if you use AI in a way that you rely on it too much, because you're just like, well, that's what AI is. I'm going to go with that. So really that research. And then that critical thinking attached to it, I think is really key there.
Zach Thompson: Okay. Yeah. that, and then are there places that you would point them towards to gain that knowledge as it relates to data?
Nora: you mean in terms of learning how to do that? I think that's probably not official training. I think it's really something that you learn as you go. I think it's just something that you have to continuously practice. think with every brief, ⁓ think what we try and do here is when I onboard someone new to show them a few tools that they can start using, I will introduce them to our CXI strategist to walk them through and to start getting comfortable with more and more tools so that you know exactly how to use them and when to pull them in. ⁓ So I think that's the best way is to start to use certain tools, get comfortable with them and seeing the value that they bring. And then the more you feel comfortable with using those, the more natural it also becomes to then, you know, dive in and take a look at what you can find. But it's really a learning by doing thing. ⁓ And I think you learn at university as well already, you have access to, I think, probably some of the same research shows we do. ⁓ So really kind of looking through the data and distilling it and Yeah, it's important to just keep practicing.
Zach Thompson: So there's going to be some training that will happen, some onboarding that will happen when graduates or new marketers join agencies, join businesses. That will be part of it. But having some data literacy, we could call it through utilizing the tools that they already have access to before they get to that part. Yeah, that's really good.
Nora: Definitely important. Especially as, you know, yeah, you coming in as a graduate, that is really the main skill you can bring to the table to be good at doing research and pulling out the right knackers of insights. ⁓ And that's really the first step that you need to be a successful strategist.
Zach Thompson: Yeah, again, you've already started to touch on some of these things, but looking back at yourself as, you know, when you were about to graduate, what's some advice that you would give yourself at that point?
Nora: I think it's especially for strategy, it's quite tough to land a junior position as your first job. So I sort of started applying for creative agencies for any type of role that I could get. And I started working at first in an account role, so in the client leadership position for a few months. So I think trying to get your foot into the door however way you can is great because you can always sort of Once you've got a little bit of agency experience in one place, kind of swap teams, switch over. ⁓ glad that I did that because if I had held out for that perfect position to come up, it's really difficult to land that on the first go. ⁓ I think ⁓ being too picky with your first position, even though maybe that will sound weird, is actually probably the right way to go because just getting your foot in the door, especially in the current market, can be really tricky. ⁓ really being open to entering through a lot of different pathways and then finding your way into the position that you ideally would like to have. also you might never, you might love being an account person in the agency. You might not want to be a strategist, know, so I think it also helps because it grounds you in the different departments, teaches you how they work. So I'm glad that I did that at the time. I also think that having a mentor is really important. I had a mentor outside of the agency. before I went into a job that really helped. know, there's a lot of programs that offer those partnerships for free where you can get a mentor within the industry. And I think that's incredibly helpful because it's so difficult to know how to navigate an industry that you're new to. So having someone there to talk to is super important and has helped me a lot.
Zach Thompson: Is there anything that we haven't talked about today that you feel like we should have?
Nora: think we covered a lot of subjects, actually. ⁓ I think we covered most of it. Yeah, a lot to talk about.
Zach Thompson: Excellent, excellent, excellent. Where can people find out more about you and the work that you do?
Nora: I'm on LinkedIn. ⁓ I don't post that frequently on it, but I am on LinkedIn. So you can find me, Nora von Arnim and the RAPP website as well. ⁓ Yeah, that's probably the main places.
Zach Thompson: Excellent. Nora, thank you so much for coming on the Marketer Exchange. I really appreciate you. I really enjoyed talking to you today. Thank you so much.
Nora: Thank you so much.
Nora: Thanks for having me.
Zach Thompson: why don't we start just introduce yourself and tell us a bit about the work that you do.
Nora: Yeah, ⁓ I'm a strategy director at RAPP. ⁓ I'm from Germany. I moved to New York about three and a half years ago. I've been with RAPP for six years now. ⁓ RAPP has been really great to work for. ⁓ RAPP is a marketing agency that really looks at building stronger relationships with customers using data, creative and ⁓ strategy. And I'm an experienced strategist. So we do everything kind of customer experience development. ⁓ We try to understand the customers, the data that we get and really design the most optimized customer experience. So everything customer relationship management is what we do. We look at all sorts of channels. Email is our primary channel, but we look at direct mail, at SMS, apps. ⁓ website optimizations as well. we work with digital ⁓ banner ads and paid social too. So really across the spectrum, but really directly talking ⁓ to the consumer there.
Zach Thompson: OK, so for folks that don't know much about agency life, where does strategy sit within does that work in connections with other teams and working with other folks? How does that work within RAPP?
Nora: Yes, so ⁓ the strategy team is really kind of in the middle a little bit. We have the ⁓ client services, or also called the account team, that are directly responsible for the relationship with the clients. And so they're directly tuned in with the clients sort of on a daily basis, ⁓ finding out what projects need to happen, working on that relationship and delivering that back to us. ⁓ If a brief comes in, they would come to us and we would start working on a project. ⁓ So that would be funneled through them. And then we would do our research, you know, come up with a strategy and work together with the marketing sciences team in collaboration to come up with that solution. ⁓ And once we have sort of dug into the data, looked at everything that the clients have sent us, looked at the current customer experience, then we would come up with a brief together. So the marketing sciences team and strategy, but predominantly strategy with the marketing sciences input. And we would then go to the creative team to brief them. So we sort of take it from the client services team, work with marketing sciences together, and then we give it to creative who then comes up with ⁓ the end product. So we're kind of the middleman that gets the project, ⁓ builds the strategy and direction for it, and then guides. the rest of the team, so the creatives to come up with the copy and visuals for it.
Zach Thompson: Okay, great. You've come up through the ranks at Wrapp too. So you haven't always been a strategy director. You were a junior strategist, I guess you might call it, and then you've come up through the ranks now, a strategy director. Tell us a little bit about how that role has changed and going from working on individual briefs for one client and now looking at the whole customer journey.
Nora: Yeah, it's been great. I've been very lucky working at RAPP, starting as a junior strategist. I came straight out of university. I had a placement year and other experiences, but RAPP is really the biggest chunk of my experience. And so I got really lucky. I'm still here and I've been able to grow so much. It's changed a lot over the years, for sure. When I started as a junior strategist, I would sort of work on one-off briefs. So I would write a creative brief for an email for I think at the time it was Virgin Media ⁓ and to work on just single deliverables. So writing that creative brief, briefing the creatives and seeing that creative all the way through. So really single touch points that could be offer emails or, you know, things like that. And then as I got more and more senior in my role, I would work on larger strategic initiatives, which now can take, you know, up to three, four months at the time. So now we really look at the holistic customer experience. So I've really started to work with a tool that we call an affinity analysis. It looks like an infinity loop. ⁓ And we call it the affinity loop, where we map the whole customer experience from start to finish. So the path to purchase, the path to loyalty on the right. And we will look at mapping the whole customer experience for our clients and optimizing it end to end. looking at all channels, looking really kind of diving deep into the data. And these projects can take several months. We would then uncover things like, you know, the onboarding experience is terrible for your brand. So we need to optimize that. And then we would slate that within our fiscal year planning as the top priority and start working on that and coming up with that strategy, even though sometimes it's maybe, you know, 10 touch points, which sounds like something that you could quickly do that can take kind of a few months to work internally and then also externally to get it kind of approved and have lots of different teams feed into it. those are sort of more complex initiatives. ⁓ And also now I work with the inter-agency teams. So we've got other agencies ⁓ sometimes within Omnicom, sometimes outside of Omnicom that we work with. And so we would have to come up with integrated strategies. So we would work with the media planning and buying agency as well. to work on integrating digital and CRM and that would be more complex too, because you've got different stakeholders there. yeah, so projects have become more complex and sort of longer reaching over time. ⁓ But yeah, so it's changed quite a lot.
Zach Thompson: Yeah, it sounds like it. So tell me a little bit more about the research side of the customer journey work that you guys do. How are you gathering that data? it focus groups? What are you doing to gather that data about the customer journey?
Nora: Yeah, so it really depends on the project. We have a seam called CXI, who are our sort of customer intelligence team ⁓ that we can tap into for larger projects. So they will do things like primary research for us. ⁓ I've done this a couple of times for clients. ⁓ And they are also in charge of our research tools. So we've got a huge suite of ⁓ research tools, things like work and Mintel, eMarketer, things like that. We've got subscriptions too that we can kind of dig into and use at our leisure. and things like brand watch as well, social listening tools. ⁓ So we will use those to do a lot of our research and then we will use our own clients data, right? Often ⁓ our clients have done their own research internally that they share with us. ⁓ In good cases, they have a sophisticated team that can show us sort of what that experience looks like. And sometimes we have to do a lot of desk research to supplement what. what they can't give us. it really depends on what's available from the clients. But we've got expertise in some verticals like pharma and automotive, where we've gathered quite a lot of Intel and research over the years that we kind of always continuously build on. ⁓
Zach Thompson: All right, you referred to yourself earlier as an experienced strategist. So tell me a little bit more, like for somebody who's hearing that for the first time, what does that mean in practice? What do do as an experienced strategist?
Nora: Yeah, so experience might sound like it's something like we're doing some sort of pop-up in person, but it's not really an in-person experience. It's the online experience. We call it experience strategy because it's that direct customer experience that we're influencing. So we're not building the ⁓ huge ads that you see on the side of the road or the TV ads. We're direct to the customer. ⁓ And so we're really kind of building that online experience and direct experience for them. So we will look at not just the emails that we're sending out, but all of the other channels that are part of that. So we'll look at the whole ecosystem, you know, including the things that they will get from apps, the SMS, the direct mail. We will also kind of talk to sometimes if it's, you know, in automotive, the dealer, what were they getting from the dealer? What are they getting from other sort of levels within the organization and try and align that experience. ⁓ So we don't just look at one channel as the full experience, but we look at all of the channels and how that kind of forms the full experience for them. We will also, sometimes for example, we've talked to the call center team and asked what complaints have come in, right? So as we develop like a welcome onboarding journey, for example, we would take that into account. We would talk to that team. And if we know that, you people are really struggling with a certain issue, we would try and address that within our experience. So we want to make sure we look at each channel. what problems have come up, where is there any sort of barriers that we need to address within the channels we can influence? So yeah.
Zach Thompson: As you guys are putting different strategies together, and I mean, I would imagine you hear a lot of pitches for strategy and put together a lot of pitches for strategy. What makes a strategy feel strong to you versus something that maybe is just a good presenter or something that is well presented? What's the difference between that and a good strategy?
Nora: Yeah, I think sometimes strategy can be a lot of smokes and mirrors and just kind of fancy words without the data behind it, right. So a good strategy is really something that's been thoughtfully crafted with, ⁓ with lots of teams in mind. So ⁓ what I've always heard from our chief strategy officer ⁓ is that we, as strategists should always listen more than we speak. It's really about listening and about doing the research and talking to the different teams. A good brief should never be built just by a strategist. It should happen in collaboration with the other teams. So for me, if I know I've spoken to my marketing sciences colleagues and I've spoken to my creative colleagues and to my account colleagues and have taken their kind of point of view on board, then I know I have the different lenses and ways that they look at it in there. And then to really use the data that we have in the right way. looking at our customer data that the marketing sciences team can access and seeing what we can see and hear. Then looking at the research and backing up our approach with what we can see is happening ⁓ in the market. ⁓ So yeah, really not working on your own in your own little box and just going away and doing it by yourself. But it's really that exchange. It's really a team effort because every team comes in with their own perspective on things. So I think it's important to make it a collaborative effort, because otherwise the strategies tend to not have legs if it's just developed in your own little bubble.
Zach Thompson: OK, good. yeah, so supporting your claims with data, making sure that you have data to support what you're saying, and then also this collaborative effort across teams. Awesome. Yeah, that's so good. ⁓ What do you think are some of the things that people still misunderstand about customer experience strategy?
Nora: I think that for, I think a lot of the times, we would look at kind of some of the channels maybe in silos. And I think that's kind of not looking at it as a full, ⁓ for the full kind of lens. ⁓ we sometimes have clients who are very focused on the channel that they can impact, ⁓ without kind of thinking about all of the other touch points that will come in. Right. So just because a specific team is only responsible for these emails. doesn't mean that that's the only thing that a customer sees. And I think we need to really be aware of the fact that customers don't see ⁓ these emails as a separate stream than the legal emails that come through and the ads that they see on TV, right? All of it is ⁓ a kind of together builds the perception of the brand. And so we can't look at things in those silos. It's really not a good customer experience if we're treating them as separate from each other.
Zach Thompson: Yeah, I know one of the things that we've talked about previously was around personalization. That was something that you seem to get very excited about. What are the things that are exciting you about personalization right now?
Nora: Yeah, I think we have access to so much great data that sometimes is not used in the right way or to its full potential. So we really do a lot of with personalization at WRAP. I think there's a lot of potential to really tap into people's things that people enjoy outside of our brand, right? So for example, we worked on an automotive company where we realized that a of the customers love to golf. And so we did a test with Golf Creative and it performed really well because people felt like, you know, it resonated with them. They connected. beyond just looking at a demographic, ⁓ but looking at other of the interests that connect you has really kind of helped. And so we've done a lot of fun things with integrating those things and seeing people as full humans that have experiences and hobbies and joys outside of the brand. and not just looking at you for your gender, household, income, location, because that really doesn't show us the full person. So when we have access to that data, which we can look at the customer data and we can append it with Experian data, then we can find some pretty fun nuggets and it gets a lot more interesting than to just talk about some generic things. ⁓ And also in terms of personalization, thinking about the right moment in time. So at RUP, we always try to talk to people in the right moment, in the right channel, in the right way. And so life cycle planning, I think I touched on with that affinity analysis that we do is really important, right? So realizing that someone who is, for example, an automotive has come to the end of their lease ⁓ in a newsletter, they might not want to hear about ⁓ certain subjects that you would talk about with a new owner, right? A new owner might want to hear a little bit more about their current car. They want to learn about the brand. ⁓ But someone who's come to the end of their lease, yeah, they will be open to an offer of a new car versus someone who just bought is like, why are you sending me an offer, right? So personalization in that sense is really important because you can really annoy customers if you get it wrong in the beginning ⁓ and risk people to unsubscribe and stop engaging if they feel like you're not really listening to them. ⁓ So there's a lot to be gained by being personal in the right ways. It's also fine line, right? It can become creepy. So you need to find the right level of personalization so that people ⁓ are receptive to it.
Zach Thompson: Yeah, I mean, there are a lot of good ways that you just mentioned about how data can be used. And we've seen this big push toward big data since the 20 teens, really. It's been around for a while. And we've seen this proliferation of data now. It's everywhere. We're almost drowning in it. What are some of the things, the example you just mentioned about a car lease, and I just got a new car, so I don't need a new one. I've had that happen to me recently where I've taking my car in for servicing and got an email within the next week saying, hey, you're due for a service. Like, no, I just had one. So what do you think brands are still getting wrong about personalization? Why is it? Because we've been talking about it for a decade at least.
Nora: Yeah. ⁓ Yeah, I think having a lot of data doesn't necessarily mean you're understanding it, right? I think a lot of people, ⁓ we look at what about the action, we look at what people did, but not maybe why they did it. And the reasons behind it, the mindsets, the intentions. So sometimes I think we come to conclusions too quickly, and we don't fully look at the we don't look at the full picture. ⁓ And so I think that's where precision and empathy comes in, which is important for us here. So we really try to make sure that we do talk to people in the right moments, in the right way, and connect with them across the journey, across the channels in those manners. ⁓ Yeah, I think a lot of the time, we still make broad stroke assumptions and just focus on the wrong things and really get it wrong.
Zach Thompson: Yeah, so it's not just about having the data, but being able to use it well, right? ⁓ You mentioned previously too, precision with empathy at RAPP. So this is something that you guys are focused on, right? What does this look like in the work that you're doing on a daily basis?
Nora: Yeah. Yeah, I think ⁓ it's really, it's really important that we work with our marketing science colleagues together, because they have so much access to all of the data. And so precision with empathy is really only possible if we if we work closely with them, and we keep our pulse on what how customers are reacting. we will have bi weekly meetings where we look at the results for recent campaigns and look at how things performed to try and make sure that we can continuously optimized. So we will have test learn plans ⁓ for clients to sort of keep testing and learning and try and get better with how we target people in the right way. And for every big campaign, you know, we will look at ⁓ certain ways to segment and personalize to become even better in the way that we talk ⁓ to people. ⁓ We ⁓ have very modular approach and how we look at emails. ⁓ So we will have a single email that you might receive, but I will receive a very different version of it with dynamic modules that pull in based on your behavior. So we do a lot of that ⁓ where we make it easier for our clients. We don't have 16 versions of an email, but we have one template that flows in different modules depending on your behavior. ⁓ So that's really where we try and be as precise as we can by understanding. what our customers need at the different stages of their life cycle with us.
Zach Thompson: I go back to that answer you earlier about the golf ⁓ example where the automotive company and you discovered that were responding really well to the golf creative? How did you come up with that? How did you identify that they were responding to that or that that idea might even work?
Nora: Yeah, so we had run tests before based on demographics ⁓ that just didn't resonate as well. And so we looked at the data and we looked at ⁓ so we looked at their customer data appended with experience and we looked at what their hobbies were. And golf and skiing came out as things that resonated. So ⁓ we thought it would be worth a test. We would never kind of roll the rule. us out of the whole base, we would always do ⁓ test to see if it performs well ⁓ a generic creative. ⁓ And so yeah, we did that golf test and it performed really well. Yeah, was within the copy, within the visuals, ⁓ not too much, not too little, but ⁓ into that hobby and it performed well. And since then, we've been trying to roll that out across other clients or depending on the season as well to see where we can incorporate it. I think with that, we also need to be careful because you don't want to be constantly now sending them golf, golf, golf, right? You're not a golf company, trying to figure out the right moments to lean into their hobbies, I think is important ⁓ so that you don't risk fatigue with that as well.
Zach Thompson: So secondary data through Experian. And then you saw that this is a potential opportunity here, ran some tests to see if it was going to be effective and then rolled it out more broadly. That's really interesting. ⁓ So we'd be remiss to not talk about AI in this space. So talk to me a little bit about how ⁓ AI works within strategy work and how you guys are using it and maybe how you feel like you shouldn't be using it.
Nora: Yeah. Yeah, and AI has really changed things. I think I'm quite glad that I started out as a junior strategist, learning everything from the ground up, because I think now a lot of those, a lot of the things that I used to do manually can be done with AI. ⁓ We really use it as a partner, not as someone to do our job, right. So ⁓ at the onset of a brief, I always find it very useful to look at the client brief through the lens of AI and pull out the key opportunities there. ⁓ We use it for creative brief writing as well. ⁓ So we will work with the AI to come up with some of the, just some of the phrasing for the creatives as ⁓ well. We will come up with the ultimate strategy, but there's a lot of ⁓ our job is writing PowerPoint decks, right? And so AI can be really helpful in phrasing things in the right way and having you, you know. turn this thing that you were thinking about into ⁓ a really succinct bullet point. So really helps to just make us better storytellers and make sure we're really hitting the nail on the head with how we're talking about things. ⁓ I think a few years ago, it would take a lot longer to build a PowerPoint deck. And I think now ⁓ lot of the real kind of crafting of the net of the language ⁓ can really be helped through AI. So we use it a lot for that. We don't use it to do research. We have access to a lot of great research tools, and we cannot trust AI to do that work for us. It can sometimes point you in the right direction, but we really don't want to want to leverage any sort of sourcing from there. ⁓ But it definitely helps as a partner to try and figure out the narrative that you're creating.
Zach Thompson: So you said that as a young strategist or a junior strategist, you're grateful that you had to learn some of these things manually and to do some of these things manually. What are some of those things that you feel like junior strategists today should be learning to do manually rather than leaning too heavily on AI?
Nora: Yeah, I think it's important to learn how to write a creative brief without having an AI tool. ⁓ Because it'll really teach you to think more deeply about things. I think it teaches you critical thinking, I think AI has taken away the ability to or you know, the need to critically think about something yourself and just ask the AI what it thinks. So and I don't think you can be a strategist without being able to be a critical thinker. So I think relying on it heavily can really shoot people in the foot later on. ⁓ and even relying on it, you know, while studying too much. I think you should really be able to sit with your own thoughts about a subject and kind of figure out which way you want to go with it. ⁓ I think a lot of that is now just, yeah, you can just ask AI and it'll give you an answer. But ⁓ coming up with that yourself, I think is really important ⁓ because that will really make you a good strategist.
Zach Thompson: You've ⁓ stayed within WRAP. You've moved up pretty quickly, and you've moved up through the ranks, progressed a lot within one agency, within one organization. That seems to me to be fairly unique these days. People tend to move around a lot. So it seems interesting to me that you've stayed within WRAP and progressed like you have. What do you think has mattered most for you as you've progressed? And what has helped you the most as you've progressed through the organization?
Nora: Yeah, I do think it's quite unique that I've stayed for so long. ⁓ I think ⁓ I was really lucky to work with some great people ⁓ over the years. And I think ⁓ working with the right managers and mentors really makes a huge difference. I've always had great cheerleaders that have supported me in my efforts. ⁓ what's helped me is that I've always been, I think my main drive is constant growth and learning. And I've always felt like I got those experiences that rub really well. I've always kind of I, there's, you know, the affinity analysis tool, for example, was something that I really enjoyed working on and became someone that's done a lot of those. So I started then, when I moved to New York, coaching some of the colleagues here on how to use those tools and things like that. I've always put myself forward as someone that doesn't just work in their own little corner and clocks off, but I've always been someone that wants to teach the team, work with the team. I've always just been very involved with the team and ⁓ I've never seen this just as a job where I go home and forget about it. I've always enjoyed just being really involved and improving things and pushing our leadership teams to do things differently or set up a call for these things or, know, ⁓ run like AI sessions where we've taught the rest of the team how to use it and things like that. I think I've always just been like a very collaborative person in that way and proactive. And I think that always is appreciated because I think a lot of people kind of, you know, come in, go home. ⁓ ⁓ me, it's always been more than that. And also ⁓ offering me the opportunity to come to New York was was huge. And ⁓ I've loved kind of that change. It's a it's a big difference ⁓ to kind of move across the ocean like that. And so that's also ⁓ is a reason why I've kind of stayed and why it's still I still feel like I'm learning because it almost feels like a different agency when you move to a new city.
Zach Thompson: Absolutely. So collaboration with others, work ethic, and also having supportive managers and leadership. But I'd imagine that you've had to push hard for your own progression too. So what does that look like in practice as you've pushed hard for making it happen for yourself?
Nora: Yeah, I think I'm lucky because I'm quite extroverted and confident in the workplace. And that's definitely helped me. ⁓ I have definitely not never been handed a promotion just because I sat back and smiled. I've always had to, you know, go to my managers, my leaders and advocate for progression, ask for the job, ask for the for more money. And sometimes those are challenging conversations. They're not always easy and it can be very intimidating. but I've always pushed for it. I would always have a list ready of all the reasons why I deserve that promotion, why I've worked hard. ⁓ always been someone that volunteers for things and it's kind of proactive as well, or, you know, working on pitches and things like that. So I've always showed that I'm, I'm a team player and I put in the work, but also that I want that recognition and, ⁓ sort of back. But yeah, you do have to speak up. You do have to. put yourself out there, you can't expect those things to just come because you've been at a company for a certain amount of years. That's just not how it works. So yeah, it comes with a lot of work for sure.
Zach Thompson: What does some of those conversations look like when you go to your manager, your leadership, and you say, you know, you've got your list of things that you've done well or over the last however long. What does that conversation look like? What do some of the negotiations look like?
Nora: Yeah, so every year we would write like a self reflection report ⁓ with a number of questions where we would reflect on how we've improved and developed. ⁓ And so that in itself helps as a starting point to try and figure out, ⁓ yeah, you know, like I have actually made quite a lot of progress. I've done all these things. And it kind of helps you also feel confident that yeah, you do deserve this promotion as you sort of look back because I think sometimes you can forget how much you achieve within a year. And then it's a continuous conversation with your managers, it would never be something that just gets brought up once and it comes out of nowhere. ⁓ It's sort of a conversation that you know, you know, after a certain amount, you you would be eligible for it. So there would be conversations before the promotion cycle would even begin like four months prior to say, you know, I would really like to go for this promotion. And you can kind of fill out with your manager if that's something that's the cards for this time and something you should push for. If you have a good relationship with your manager, which is really important, you know, then you can start crafting as well. Like, the reasons why, because they also have to go to their manager to push for your promotion. So ⁓ it's kind of a long game, right? It's not just like a one-off negotiation. It's kind of something that develops over a few months. And yeah, it's kind of that. ⁓ And yeah, sometimes you, you know, I've brought up the salary that people have in other agencies before and how much I think I'm worth and things like that, right. And say how much, know, you bring to the team and the things that you are in charge of, even though you might not have that level. you know, just kind of being confident about what you bring to the table and what you bring to the company and hoping that that gets seen. Sometimes it's out of your manager's or manager's manager's control because, you know, we work for big holding companies and Sometimes things are impossible, but yeah, I've always tried to push for things because there's nothing more frustrating than missing a cycle opportunity and being really angry at yourself that you didn't go for it. yeah.
Zach Thompson: So it sounds a little bit like a similar approach to pitching ideas to a client, bringing the data. having data related to what other agencies are paying people who are in a similar position to you. Also having data about the projects that you've been working on and what you'd have been able to contribute and what that's generated for that business maybe. So having data to support the claims that you're making about what you do, right? Very good. So for somebody early in their career,
Nora: Definitely. Yeah, for sure. Yeah.
Zach Thompson: kind of touched on it here, how you've done this, but any advice for people who are early in their career about how they can show initiative, ⁓ just how they can get more involved and ⁓ the business grow.
Nora: Yeah, think ⁓ I personally also want to say I my work life balance is very important to me. ⁓ And I think that, you know, when you're early on in your career, working late is not the thing that's going to cut it in some companies, maybe that will show that you're very dedicated. But it can also show that you have very poor time management. So I wouldn't just rely on showing up and being there late and being the last person to leave the office. I think the most important thing is really talking to other people. and talking to people across teams and really like shadowing other people and reaching out and saying, hey, you I know we don't work on a project together, but I would really love a 30 minute chat to hear about this thing that you guys do. And I heard you work on this thing and how can I just like see what you guys are doing and learn a little bit. So I think really putting yourself out there across the teams and show interest and have those conversations. ⁓ you know, show that you're available for supporting on pitches to shadow how those happen. You know, when you're a junior, you don't usually get involved at the forefront in pitches, but you can say, you can offer yourself up to do some research for it and shadow and all those things will help you so much because you will gain experience. You will start to understand early how those things work and you will really show that you're proactive. You're showing initiatives, you're there offering to do small team share outs. ⁓ You know, in most agencies, there's sort of team meetings where someone can share work or teach a tool or do things like that. Putting yourself forward for those things is always really helpful too. ⁓ Or even social initiatives, you know, if you're really someone who cares about the culture of the agency, ⁓ helping organize that I think always helps too. So ⁓ those things don't have to be things that you do outside of your work or to do on your weekend, but really just in the day to day. in how you interact with people. think really, yeah, not sitting in the office with your headphones on, not talking to anyone, that that's going to be difficult and also will make your job feel more intimidating. But actually just having conversations, I think is is honestly the best way. And that's how I've done it as well.
Zach Thompson: It's such an important piece of advice. mean, it can be very difficult for new grads or people new to an agency or new to a business, maybe more introverted than others. It's such a hard thing for people to get over sometimes, but it's so important. mean, it's missed opportunities every day when you're not doing that,
Nora: Yeah. Yeah, and start with people that you, you know, are your age that ⁓ are similar level in a different team that you can talk to, to start building confidence, you know, it doesn't have to be the head of department, right? It can be really people on your level that you start to learn from until you feel more confident to speak to others. So, ⁓ yeah, definitely important.
Zach Thompson: Yeah, it's good advice, good advice. So you're from Germany, also lived in London and now live in New York. How has living and working across those three different cultures, pretty distinct cultures, how has that shaped your career?
Nora: I think it's really interesting. ⁓ I was kind of terrified to move to New York because I thought, ⁓ my God, this is going to be so different from London. But actually, honestly, London and New York have so much in common in the way that they are so multicultural and just so much arts and culture. It's been really fun. ⁓ I think it's helped me understand the different consumer environments for sure. ⁓ I think in Europe, with GDPR, certain things are, you personalization wise are not possible in the same way that they are possible here. And there's a lot more pharma advertising that happens in the US compared to Europe. So a lot of things have been different there. I think it's really helped me look at a broad spectrum of clients. And it's been interesting even just working across clients that we had in the UK and working for them here. The work culture is definitely very different and you you learn to kind of adapt to the American way but ⁓ Yeah, it's been it's been fun. think it's going to help me in the long term because I can really kind of adapt to the different markets and understand consumers across across the globe better now, I think.
Zach Thompson: been your favorite place to live and work?
Nora: it's really tough. I love London and I love New York. think they're both so unique. ⁓ love living in New York right now. I definitely ⁓ lived in London for eight years and it was so fun to live there and ⁓ loved the job there and the agency. But for right now, New York is incredible and we have some really fun clients that we work with and I wouldn't I wouldn't change it right now. New York is where I want to be.
Zach Thompson: Nice, nice. Always a good feeling to be where you want to be. That's always a good thing. Very good. So as you are hiring or training new marketers, this is kind of getting back to some advice for new marketers or folks who are about to graduate. What is it that you wish they understood about agency life and about strategy within agency?
Nora: For sure. ⁓ I think the most important thing is that you really need to know that you're a storyteller as a strategist. ⁓ And so your strategy can be as sound as you think it is, but if that doesn't come across, it's completely lost. So the most important thing really is to learn to tell a story and to try and craft your slides, your pitch deck in a way that is captivating, right? And that feels supported by data and feels obvious and clear. Sometimes we will have people, you know, we will teach we will brief creative and it will just not land with them and they won't understand the brief, they won't quite get it, it won't land with them. And even though that's an internal team, you know, you, they still need to believe that that's the right way to go and they will push back if they don't agree with how you've written the brief. So really being clear is important. I think one thing that I did when I studied was I would always write the 10 % above the word limit and I would really struggle to be succinct and that's really something I've tried to get better at. Always, you know, I used to build decks of like 50 slides and you lose clients halfway through, it's just too much, right? And now we really try and reduce it to like 10, 15 slides, you know, say it in way less than you have to, you know, like really moving slides to the appendix and... upleveling things and not having slides with long texts on it that you have to like take ages to digest, but really like at its essence, what do you need to deliver? So that storytelling, I think that's the key thing that you need to learn.
Zach Thompson: That's really good. All right, so storytelling, are there other capabilities that you feel like graduates or new marketers you wish they had as they come into work?
Nora: I think it's important to get very comfortable getting super deep into the data and into the research. I think you have to be a bit of a nerd and enjoy digging deep without falling into rabbit holes. And I think that skill of trying to figure out what's the right data point to go after, which what's coming up the most, right? Not looking at one article and saying, okay, cool, this is it, we're going to go away with it. But really, looking at different data sources and contrasting, comparing and seeing what am I seeing across the board here? What keeps bubbling up to the surface? So when it comes to that, you really can't be lazy. You have to really look at the different sources and try and see what's key theme that I'm getting from this. And so I think that's an important skill. And that's something that I think sometimes gets lost if you use AI in a way that you rely on it too much, because you're just like, well, that's what AI is. I'm going to go with that. So really that research. And then that critical thinking attached to it, I think is really key there.
Zach Thompson: Okay. Yeah. that, and then are there places that you would point them towards to gain that knowledge as it relates to data?
Nora: you mean in terms of learning how to do that? I think that's probably not official training. I think it's really something that you learn as you go. I think it's just something that you have to continuously practice. think with every brief, ⁓ think what we try and do here is when I onboard someone new to show them a few tools that they can start using, I will introduce them to our CXI strategist to walk them through and to start getting comfortable with more and more tools so that you know exactly how to use them and when to pull them in. ⁓ So I think that's the best way is to start to use certain tools, get comfortable with them and seeing the value that they bring. And then the more you feel comfortable with using those, the more natural it also becomes to then, you know, dive in and take a look at what you can find. But it's really a learning by doing thing. ⁓ And I think you learn at university as well already, you have access to, I think, probably some of the same research shows we do. ⁓ So really kind of looking through the data and distilling it and Yeah, it's important to just keep practicing.
Zach Thompson: So there's going to be some training that will happen, some onboarding that will happen when graduates or new marketers join agencies, join businesses. That will be part of it. But having some data literacy, we could call it through utilizing the tools that they already have access to before they get to that part. Yeah, that's really good.
Nora: Definitely important. Especially as, you know, yeah, you coming in as a graduate, that is really the main skill you can bring to the table to be good at doing research and pulling out the right knackers of insights. ⁓ And that's really the first step that you need to be a successful strategist.
Zach Thompson: Yeah, again, you've already started to touch on some of these things, but looking back at yourself as, you know, when you were about to graduate, what's some advice that you would give yourself at that point?
Nora: I think it's especially for strategy, it's quite tough to land a junior position as your first job. So I sort of started applying for creative agencies for any type of role that I could get. And I started working at first in an account role, so in the client leadership position for a few months. So I think trying to get your foot into the door however way you can is great because you can always sort of Once you've got a little bit of agency experience in one place, kind of swap teams, switch over. ⁓ glad that I did that because if I had held out for that perfect position to come up, it's really difficult to land that on the first go. ⁓ I think ⁓ being too picky with your first position, even though maybe that will sound weird, is actually probably the right way to go because just getting your foot in the door, especially in the current market, can be really tricky. ⁓ really being open to entering through a lot of different pathways and then finding your way into the position that you ideally would like to have. also you might never, you might love being an account person in the agency. You might not want to be a strategist, know, so I think it also helps because it grounds you in the different departments, teaches you how they work. So I'm glad that I did that at the time. I also think that having a mentor is really important. I had a mentor outside of the agency. before I went into a job that really helped. know, there's a lot of programs that offer those partnerships for free where you can get a mentor within the industry. And I think that's incredibly helpful because it's so difficult to know how to navigate an industry that you're new to. So having someone there to talk to is super important and has helped me a lot.
Zach Thompson: Is there anything that we haven't talked about today that you feel like we should have?
Nora: think we covered a lot of subjects, actually. ⁓ I think we covered most of it. Yeah, a lot to talk about.
Zach Thompson: Excellent, excellent, excellent. Where can people find out more about you and the work that you do?
Nora: I'm on LinkedIn. ⁓ I don't post that frequently on it, but I am on LinkedIn. So you can find me, Nora von Arnim and the RAPP website as well. ⁓ Yeah, that's probably the main places.
Zach Thompson: Excellent. Nora, thank you so much for coming on the Marketer Exchange. I really appreciate you. I really enjoyed talking to you today. Thank you so much.
Nora: Thank you so much.
