How To Make It In Marketing #4: Aunt Bessie’s / Sam Dolan / Head of Marketing
How To Make It In Marketing #4: Aunt Bessie’s / Sam Dolan / Head of Marketing
Sam Dolan is the Head of Marketing at Aunt Bessie’s, with a varied career in the food industry spanning brands such as Lurpak and Cravendale. She was the mastermind behind the “cats with thumbs” ad!
Sam’s an advocate of being a “Jack of all trades” and knowing a little about a lot, without worrying about specialising in any one topic. In marketing, we’re the only people who are involved in the end-to-end journey of a product, and there are plenty of experts along the way, so it’s more important to be able to use them at the right time than to focus on one particular area of expertise for yourself.
What is your advice about how to make it in marketing?
Behaviour is everything, attitude is everything. You can have a great plan on paper but all down to how you execute it.
How have you put this tip to good use?
I highly recommend Adam Morgan’s book, The Pirate Inside. It’s all about building a challenger brand and having a challenger mindset, all about behaviours. I think it really helps especially young marketers to get in the right frame of mind.
I’ve worked on challenger brands as well as on brands who were leaders, and I think the challenger mindset is needed with both. In fact, it’s even tougher with leaders, you can’t keep doing what you’re doing. You’ve got to keep agile, you’ve got to keep looking for new ideas. There’s always somebody who’s kind of coming right behind you.
What marketing tips does the industry need most right now?
Recently at Aunt Bessie’s we’re starting to think more about the eco-system of communications rather than channels. Especially online, consumers are bombarded with content and they’re distracted, but there are ways to get their attention beyond that. For me, direct mail, if it’s well targeted, can be a great new way to communicate your brand message.
When consumers receive direct mail, they pay more attention, and there have been studies showing it also has a high ROI. Additionally, it can drive more loyalty because when consumers act on the information, they are more determined and have more intention than those who see a fleeting advert.
So, while it’s not something new, I believe direct mail can be combined effectively with other campaigns and targeted well and it can drive some exciting results. We’re certainly going to test that.
Listen to Sam talk about her favourite books, best items she’s bought for work, and more marketing advice, on the latest episode of our Shiny New Object podcast: https://open.spotify.com/episode/3l3LUcRt6u9ASFO0fkJ1W0
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