Ever wondered what it's like working for a marketing agency like us?
To get a better feel for this part of the retail marketing industry and what agency life is really like, we’ve interviewed Sali Davies, a Client Manager at Threefold…
What is it you actually do? Sali Davies: As a Client Manger at Threefold, we work in partnership with retailers such as Shop Direct, Co-op and Mothercare to deliver supplier-led campaigns both on and off-site. Originally joining the Shop Direct account up in Liverpool, in 2016 I transitioned over to the Mothercare account to look after the campaign implementation team, splitting my time between our agency offices and the Mothercare HQ. As we work with over 90 supplier brands at Mothercare, my role is quite broad. One day we’ll be working with anyone from Silver Cross and Graco through to VTech toys, so you’re able to work with a whole host of brands within the Mothercare umbrella. The additional challenge of working within an ever-changing retail environment is also an exciting one to say the least! What skills do you need?
SD: My three key things are: the ability to multi-task, organisation and communication. Due to the nature of retail, the turnaround of campaigns is incredibly fast, with up to 25 campaigns going live in a month so my ability to multi-task has definitely improved! As factors such as stock, promotional activity and trading contingencies can sometimes affect campaigns, it is imperative that the workflow is organised and up-to-date at all times so the team can work flexibly with the buying and trading teams at Mothercare to execute the campaigns successfully.
What does a typical day look like? SD: The first thing I’ll do each day is check progress on each campaign via Trello, a project management tool. I’ll ensure priorities are aligned with the team and we’re on track with each campaign. This is predominantly from a creative perspective; however, I’ll then have a quick look into the custom dashboards within Google Data Studio to check how the live campaigns are performing across the site and highlight the key actions and highlights to the team.
As we work in partnership with Mothercare, I also spend a few days a week inside their head offices to ensure that we’re working closely with all internal teams from the buying and merchandisers, to store communication staff through to the digital teams. This is a critical aspect to the role as we’ve become an extension to their own marketing team, focusing predominantly on supplier activity.
What do you love? What sucks? SD: What I love about the role is the sheer diversity of my day to day! As a shopper media agency that puts data at the heart of what we do, I love analysing the campaigns to ensure that we’re continuously optimising activity to ensure that we deliver the best possible results to our clients. With many of the touchpoints being within the digital realm, it enables us to really delve deep into the analytics and understand what really drove the campaigns and how we can build upon these in the future.
In terms of what sucks, it has to be when unforeseeable external factors such as competitor price matching comes into play during a campaign! This is a challenge that we have to face head-on and optimise the campaign accordingly to ensure we deliver the result we’re after.