In this episode of The Paid Media Playbook, hosts Laura and Lisa sit down with Ashley Coates, the Marketing Director for Loyalti. With an impressive 18-year career in marketing and communications, Ashley shares her journey from agency to client-side, offering invaluable insights into the unique challenges and benefits of each role. Tune in to hear her discuss her diverse experiences, the importance of understanding both sides of the marketing equation, and tips for anyone looking to navigate a career in this dynamic field.

‍

Chapters:

‍

00:00 - 05:20 - The Journey to Loyalti

• In this chapter, Ashley Coates shares the story of her extensive 18-year career in marketing and communications. From starting out as an account executive at an advertising agency to working in the marketing department at the Seattle Repertory Theater, Ashley's journey is filled with diverse experiences. She discusses the valuable lessons learned from her time on both the agency and client sides, and how these experiences prepared her for her current role as Marketing Director at Loyalti.

05:21 - 10:40 - Navigating Pivots 

• Ashley delves into the dynamic nature of her role at Loyalti, a company that has undergone several significant pivots. She explains the strategies and adaptations required to keep up with these changes, and how her broad skill set has been crucial in steering the company through various transitions. From rebranding efforts to shifts in target markets, Ashley provides insights into the challenges and triumphs of managing marketing communications in a constantly evolving environment.

10:41 - 16:00 - Embracing Paid Media and Words of Wisdom

• In this final chapter, Ashley discusses the critical decision to incorporate paid media into Loyalti's marketing strategy. She explains how she identified the right moment to make this shift and the impact it has had on the company's growth. Additionally, Ashley offers valuable advice to her younger self and to aspiring marketers, emphasizing the importance of gaining diverse experiences, staying adaptable, and continuously learning in the ever-changing landscape of marketing and communications.

‍

Links and Resources:

‍

• Subscribe to our newsletter here
• Lisa Wekellis on LinkedIn
• Laura Szczes on LinkedIn
• Double Z Media Website
• Double Z Media on LinkedIn

‍

Thanks so much for joining us this week. Want to subscribe to Paid Media Playbook? Have some feedback you’d like to share? Connect with us on iTunes and Spotify and leave us a review!

‍

Transcription

[00:00:00] 

Lisa: And we're joined today with Ashley Coates, marketing director for Loyalti. Hi, Ashley.

Ashley: Hi, Lisa and Laura. Thanks for having me. 

Lisa: We do usually have meetings about strategy fairly regularly, but it's a little different different purpose here today. So would you start by telling our listeners just a little bit of an overview of your career?

Ashley: I have been in marketing and communications [00:01:00] for about 18 years now. I've done a wide range of Marketing and communications tasks. I guess in that time, I have a career that runs pretty broad and deep, which I think happens when you work at smaller companies because you're wearing many hats and you only have so many resources.

So I've done I mean, gosh, I've even done sales for a publication. I've done, some fundraising but primarily I've done marketing and communications strategy and execution. And I, I started off working at an advertising agency. So I was an account executive working with clients. And then I moved over to the client side, I guess.

I was working at Seattle Repertory Theater for about six years in their marketing department. And then I moved back to Portland, worked at another ad agency. And then today I'm working at Loyalty, which we'll talk more about what we do, but I head up marketing communications there. So it's, it's been a [00:02:00] long run so far.

I can't believe it's been 18 years.

Lisa: What was that experience like going from agency to client side?

Ashley: I'm so grateful that I have both experiences. I think it helps me on both sides because when I work with agencies, like working with Double Z, I have an understanding for what you need from me and what's helpful for you to get your job done. And I have the language which is very helpful and have a little bit of An understanding of what happens on the back end.

And then when I'm working on, on the agency side, Oh gosh, I just, it helps me take care of my clients really well, cause I know what I appreciate when I work with agencies and vendors. So it's been very beneficial for me to have both experiences and I would highly recommend it to anyone who's thinking about trying out the other side.

You can always switch back. I've done it. Four times. But so yeah, it's, it's been a great experience. Do it, doing both.

Lisa: [00:03:00] And now you're at loyalty.

Ashley: Yes.

Lisa: Can you tell us a little bit about that?

Ashley: Yes. So I've been at loyalty for, I think almost four years. I started off as a contractor. They're just doing copywriting and eventually it became a full time marketing position. So loyalty is a small independent software company. We're based in the U S. Which kind of sets us apart from a lot of software companies.

We're all independent and have a, a U. S. based team. And The company started in, I think it was 2010 or 2011. It was actually started because three grad students developed this software that many people got very excited about. And so they had support and backing from many people right away. They were in the department.

Disney accelerator program. So a lot of people were very excited about this. And so they turned it into a company and, tried their software out in many different the many different use cases, I should say. They were finding the best [00:04:00] fit for the technology, and I think around 2016, 2017, around there, ended up applying their technology to the customer loyalty space for retailers, specifically brick and mortar retailers. So that's where the company's been ever since. Yeah, 2016, 2017 is really in the retail space and developing a real expertise around customer loyalty and retention and understanding really well what retailers need and what merchants need from a marketing tool.

So we've just been developing our expertise ever since then. And now what's really exciting is we're developing our first e commerce tool. So we've always been in brick and mortar retailers up until now, but just February of this year, we started developing an e commerce tool specifically for Shopify merchants.

And it's so it's called loyalty. We had a little bit of a rebrand. That's the name of the company now. And it's. It's like a marketing hub for [00:05:00] Shopify merchants, so it helps you run your social media, your email marketing, and your customer loyalty program, and you can do it all from one platform, and it is fully integrated with your Shopify store.

Great.

Laura: That's cool.

Lisa: that sounds really robust. Like, I can't imagine trying to manage all of those things individually without something to help.

Ashley: Right. And we haven't found another tool that brings all three of those things together. You know, as a communications person, I'm hesitant to say we're the only one until I have, you know, someone illegal going. Yes, you can say this but we haven't found any other platforms that do all of those things together.

So it's pretty slick. And, I mean, we're just working on version 1 right now. And the, the roadmap ahead is very exciting in terms of all the new features that will be added in the coming months. So I think it will be a pretty robust tool.

Lisa: And we've been working with you for, I think, about a year now. So we did experience that last pivot. And I know we had a couple of conversations [00:06:00] about, you know, which audiences were we trying to find originally? And, you know, who are we trying to serve ads to now? What, what is it like marketing a product that is so much in flux, still in development?

Ashley: It's the first time I've really done this. So we started developing this new tool in February and we knew that we didn't want to put a ton of money behind paid media until we actually had something to sell and it was going to be several months out that said, you know, the, the sales lead time. Can be a long and we just, we didn't know exactly how long it would be because this was a brand new audience and a brand new tool.

So, we wanted to at least start to work on an early access list or some sort of way to collect information from people who were interested. So, yes, we all had a strategy session and we decided, okay, well, we're just going to promote an early access list and. You know, there were many. [00:07:00] Challenges at first, the biggest one being, we didn't know exactly what this tool was going to be yet.

We didn't know exactly which features were going to be built in. So figuring out how to communicate in a way that's as clear as possible and as specific as possible, but not over promising something that may not be there, that was challenging.

Laura: Did you have to do like trials and that sort of thing to get people to just start 

Ashley: Well, we are going to offer trials but the thing is, we don't have anything for them to use yet. It's been really interesting trying to figure out content to put out there the past several months, because up until maybe a month or 2 ago, we didn't even have UX UI designs of what the dashboard would look like.

So from a communications perspective, it was a lot of Just talking about marketing as an e commerce business and talking about social media strategy and talking about the, the challenges [00:08:00] that e commerce merchants face. So it was kind of, we definitely started off, you know, top of funnel, brand awareness really focusing on topics that Shopify merchants were interested in.

And then as we've gotten closer to our release date, we've been able to talk more specifically about the platform and the features, including showing some of the dashboard. So even though people can't play around in it yet, we put, we've cut a couple of videos that kind of walk you through the dashboard.

And they're actually all screenshots, but we tried to make it look like someone was actually clicking to make it look functional. But we do plan to offer free trials once we're live, which should be in the next few weeks. We're getting very close.

Lisa: That's exciting.

Ashley: Yeah. It's very close. One thing we did do though, which was very helpful is we had never done a big audience research project before, and that's how we kick things off, which I really pushed for.

And I'm so glad we did that. 

Laura: Yeah,

I love it. I mean you've got to do research. You can't just keep [00:09:00] assuming and throwing money at 

Ashley: exactly. It really helps you make better use of your marketing dollars when you know that this is based on the actual words and thoughts and feelings of your audience. So, yeah, we. We did a big audience research project where we started off just trying to get as many people as we could organically reaching out to our networks and our current customer base and having interviews and we started with all open ended questions so that we could get their words, their language.

And from there, , I was able to put together some closed ended questions that we could put out there in surveys and get larger quantities of, you know, answers. Of respondents and we ended up doing research with more than 450 customers within the first couple of months.

And actually we just did another survey, so now we're up to about 650 Shopify merchants. So we took the, the data that we got from that [00:10:00] research. And I was specifically looking for how are we going to message this thing? And I was able to categorize all their responses into about eight different messages.

So we developed our creative, you know, one execution for each of those messages. And then we ran that creative and tested which one is performing the best so that we can know what to kind of double down on. But I think what was kind of interesting is we, we didn't really find a lot of patterns

Lisa: Yeah.

Ashley: in terms of the performance.

Laura: Like there wasn't a lot of insights or, 

Everything was like kind of across the board 

similar. 

Ashley: what we found. And I know that your team dissected it in a few different ways. And we just couldn't find because we were looking at cross sections of industry. So fashion and beauty and gosh, I can't even remember some of them right now, even pets, I think and then we looked at how each of those industries responded to each of the different creative executions.

And we just couldn't really identify a pattern. Not a strong one anyway, [00:11:00] but you know, it was, it was still insightful because you just go, okay, well, we know we're not wasting money because they're all performing somewhat well.

Lisa: And you are wearing a lot of hats over there at Loyalty.

Ashley: Yes.

Lisa: , how did you decide that it was time to bring paid media into your overall marketing strategy?

Ashley: Yes. That's a really good question because we had done paid media in the past and it didn't really pay off for us. And, you know, paid media, it's, it's, you have to choose to make that investment because it can be a big portion of your budget and You have to understand why you're spending money, where you are, and how it connects eventually to the bottom line.

So I think Once we did start to talk to customers and get their feedback and have a better understanding of what they needed and how we can serve them that was, that was a big factor for me. I didn't want to spend money until I had a better understanding of our customer base.[00:12:00] 

Lisa: Yeah,

Ashley: And then we started off with a smaller budget than we have in the past.

And I think that was the right move. Especially for testing and you can always increase your, your budget from there. I'm trying to think if there were any other factors. I think also once we had a clear call to action you know, last, well, about a year ago when we were still doing our brick and mortar product, we did have a call to action.

It was purchase our product, but we were still, It wasn't quite performing the way we needed it to. So then once we pivoted to developing this new e commerce platform, and once we knew what we could ask of people and what we wanted to tell them, you know, I think having a clear call to action made it possible to actually go out there with a message and put money behind it.

Lisa: absolutely. 

Laura: Yeah, that's basically it. As if something you can measure there too, 

Ashley: Absolutely. Knowing the purpose of your advertising, you have to have. And I think that's really important. Because you want to have an objective and know how you're going to measure this, the [00:13:00] success. So, yeah, I think that's really important.

Lisa: How do you? keep from being overwhelmed with all of these different marketing branches that you have to manage and really run yourself.

Ashley: Yeah. Yeah. Like PR and, , creative and, you know, any existing customers dealing with almost like your customer retention , and, , just navigating all 

Laura: of that. How, how does that work? Cause I'm sure that's why you hired us is because it's like too much to do it all.

Ashley: And so, a few things. And one is, I work with a lot of really great vendors. So I am at the Yes, I am a marketing department of one. So I'm only internal person who does our marketing and communications, but I work with really awesome vendors and we, we searched for our paid digital media partner and I got recommendations from a few people and I spoke with a few different agencies and we really enjoyed chatting with double Z and I'm so glad that we, we went with you.

It's just [00:14:00] been a great experience and we've been really happy with the What we've been getting so far. So, so I think one is working with good vendors. Two is working with a good internal team. We just have a great team of people. It's a nice balance of realistic expectations and flexibility and pivots along with a real drive to move things forward.

So it's, it's

that, 

Laura: Yeah. Oh, perfect. , there's not just all this charisma and let's go and wow. There's that. But then there's also, but we got to, , pragmatic and this is what's really possible right now. 

Ashley: Absolutely. Absolutely. So yeah, working with good people who who you, you know, you have to be able to trust them and say, Hey, I can't get all this done right now. What should I prioritize? And that's actually what I was gonna say is number three, prioritize, keep reprioritizing. I mean, I feel like I priorit reprioritize several times a day because you can't get everything done.

So. [00:15:00] Coming back to all right, what's our objective? What is most important to us? What tasks are related to that? And then just knocking off as many as you can. And you even mentioned Laura. It's true. We have an existing customer base right now, all of our brick and mortar merchants, and we want to keep taking care of them because we're still servicing a product for them and that.

Along with trying to sell a new product, it's it has been a little back and forth of where do I put my focus right now, because both are important. So you may just have to prioritize one, one day your priority that the

next. 

Laura: Yeah, , it's all communications, really. It's like 

you're doing basically communications and marketing or sales and marketing, you know, you're kind of doing it all. I mean, you're not going out there individually and 

Ashley: well, that's actually a great question. So we don't have a sales team at the moment, and we're actually looking to do product lab sales. So right now all of the sales will happen online. You will not be speaking with a sales representative [00:16:00] which is different than what how we had operated in the past.

So on that front, marketing communications really is responsible for. 

than we have been in the past, because we're not just trying to drive them to book a demo. We're actually trying to drive them to make a purchase.

Lisa: Well, that's a lot.

Laura: Yeah. No, no, it is. I wasn't Yeah, that's incredible.

Lisa: Well, Ashley, thank you so much for joining us. It was really exciting to hear more about Loyalty, and I can't wait for the launch here coming up soon.

Ashley: excited about it. I've been able to play a little bit in our QA, environment and yeah, it just, it's looking really great. It's functioning really well. I did want to say if any of your listeners have a Shopify store, we would be so glad to have them come on in, test it out, get free access, give us their feedback.

I, we may or may not be live by the time this podcast airs, but you can reach out to me. I'm at marketing at loyalty l O Y [00:17:00] A L T I dot com. I'm the one who gets those emails and just reach out to me and I'll, I'll let you know when we're live and give you free access and we would love to hear what you think.

Lisa: Absolutely, and we'll put that in the show notes as well

Ashley: Oh, thank you. Thank you.

Lisa: Before we let you go, we do have one final question. If you could go back in time and give yourself, at the beginning of your career, one piece of advice, what would it be? Yeah.

Ashley: such a good question. For me, it comes back to what I learned in school about what advertising is, and I graduated with an advertising degree, so this is very specifically advertising, but paid advertising, and remembering what it is and what its purpose is, which is to persuade, or just get somebody thinking about, using your product or service.

And I think it's helpful to keep that in mind so that you set realistic expectations around what your advertising is doing. It has to work in [00:18:00] conjunction with all of your other external communications. And there's no magic bullet to putting money behind something and automatically seeing results on the other side.

You have to be strategic, you have to be data driven, and it has to be an integrated. Strategy in order to be effective, and then you have to give it time to work and optimize along the way. So that was, that was probably many things, but I think it comes back to understanding that advertising is one way of promoting your business.

And it works with several other tactics.

‍