Interview: Roisin Evans, Marketing Director at Netsells

Roisin has over 14 years of agency & client-side experience, having worked with A-list brands in a variety of industries, from B2C retail and travel brands to competitive B2B technology environments. Roisin loves to explore business & customer problems, solving them with modern technology and data insights. 

Mina: Good afternoon, Roisin. It's really nice to meet you. Could you begin by introducing yourself, and what it is that you currently do? 

Roisin: Its lovely to meet you too Mina. I'm the Marketing Director at Netsells, which is a digital product consultancy agency. Netsells designs and builds digital products. As a business we embrace the best of research, strategy, design, data and technology to solve some of our clients’ toughest digital challenges.

I’ve worked in data and digital marketing for over 14 years formulating multi-channel marketing initiatives to aid business growth; working with both B2B and B2C business models across different industry sectors and international markets. My experience has been varied and I have been lucky to work in various cultural settings and with amazing people.

Mina: What have you done in each of those places? Has it been the same kind of thing, or did you move fields? 

Roisin: I have always worked within a data and marketing role. The reason for this is no two days are ever the same, it doesn’t matter how much I learn, there is always something new, it’s an area which continually changes. There are always new innovations, new channels, new technology and evolving customer behaviour to adapt into your marketing strategy.

In my experience marketing is a board term and can vary depending on the company and market you are working in. Although over the years my experience has evolved there has always been a focus on data and customer centricity. I started my career using data to acquire the right customers, drive engagement across the whole customer journey, using insights to avoid churn and create customer loyalty.

Initially this was focused within the UK market but quickly expanded internationally where I simultaneously ran teams across UK, Germany, and U.S. For me this was eye opening, I had to quickly adopt to new technology, data and ways of working across different cultures.

Today at Netsells I am responsible for all that surrounds the customer, driving growth by threading the needle between employee experience, customer experience, brand purpose, creativity, and technology, permeating these areas to deliver value to customers throughout their lifecycle.

Mina: So, there are different rules that you have to keep in mind in each of the locations, and they're not necessarily overlapping?

Roisin: The biggest challenge of global marketing is not only communicating a consistent message and brand but understanding the cultural differences that separate consumer markets from one another. Not only that you must ensure you are meeting the data compliance regulations.

For me it all leans back to being data and customer focused and embracing the culture. It is about understanding individual customers and delivering a personalised experience across the customer lifecycle. I quickly learnt what worked well in one country and business was not necessarily transferable to another. That's what I love about marketing, where it's never the same for any business; it's always about the uniqueness of the business proposition, the product ranges that you have, whether it's high margin, low margin, variations on purchasing frequency. It really is so diverse, and you must evolve.

Mina: In terms of your current role with Netsells, what are you focused on? I'm sure that you're drawing from all that different experience-you seem to have a large portfolio with different facets, in terms of what or who you've worked with.

Roisin: Netsells are on a really exciting journey, we are one of the fastest growing tech companies in the North of England and we want to keep growing and never stay still. The pace of change in our industry is rapidly evolving and we want to navigate and lead our way through this complex market. My role is focused on understanding how we position ourselves in the market to drive growth, use data to create a strategy to be focused on our customers while building capacity across marketing touchpoints.

At the moment I am focused on the how we evolve the Netsells brand. We have listened to our customers, our internal stakeholders and evaluated the market; we are on the journey of transformation to be a brand that fits our personality and our customers.    

I am also extremely excited to be working with clients like yourselves to understand how we create an optimise customer experience across all digital channels.

Mina: What advice would you give to an early start-up that had marketing questions? Where do you think that focus should lie in those very early stages?

Roisin: I probably sound like a broken record. But for me it is all about understanding who your customers are. Your customers are the most valuable asset when creating your brand and overall marketing strategy.  However, I think it important to note who your customers are today may not be who your customers are tomorrow, you need to be flexible and evolve quickly to market changes, competitive landscape, and consumer demands. Creating unique experiences across your channels can make or break the customer experience, especially within a crowded marketspace. Investing in the right technology can connect and automate across the entire customer lifecycle and amplify your marketing success.

Success can be measured differently across channels, segments, and marketing functions. The question I would ask is “what does great look like” I would always recommend having clear marketing objectives to understand the metrics you need to measure and continually look to optimise through a test and learn approach.

Mina: Is that what happened with Netsells? The brand pivoting, and as you said earlier that you're launching, or rebranding Netsells now. Are you responding to what the customers have wanted, or is it more of an internal choice?

Roisin: There are a number of factors which have influenced this decision, the main driver has been our customers and listening to their feedback and their perception of our brand both externally and internally. We quickly identified that our brand from an external perspective is interpreted differently by our customers than how we are actually positioned.  The market today has evolved, and our customer needs have changed. We asked our customers why they have worked with us for so many years, they trust us, we are passionate about what we so and down to earth. We now need to translate this into our brand and actually show the people who don’t know Netsells what the business is like.

Mina: How do you think your next year or so will go for Netsells? What stage are you at with your rebranding?

Roisin: Busy and a lot of change but I wouldn’t have it another way. We have just completed our qualitive and quantitative research. The aim now is to translate all this into an actual strategy; that's the most important thing.

Too often there's a big focus to do research and create customer segments and deliver these amazing, big marketing plans. But I always think you need to be realistic and break this down into actionable, progressive steps, knowing when you need to stop, evaluate, optimise and then move forward.

At present we're starting to map out what that plan and strategy looks like and what we want the end goal to be. Then we’ll phase across a test and learn approach.

Mina: It seems like, as everything is dynamic, and being able to keep your finger on the pulse and see where that's shifting, or where that shift has happened, is also important.

Roisin: Absolutely. Tomorrow’s customers expect as a minimum, an easy, relevant experience of our engagement that makes use of the data they’ve given us and the signals they make (and want to share). A well-crafted, joined up strategy is critical to the delivery of optimised customer experience.