Tim Bay is the Head of Digital Marketing at Fellowes Brands where he is responsible for building comprehensive strategies and programs to drive greater brand awareness, increased engagement, and profitable growth via digital channels. Before joining Fellowes, Tim had accumulated 20+ years of B2C and B2B digital marketing leadership experiences in roles such as Vice President of Digital Marketing at Wilton Brands and Co-Founder of Shay Digital, an internet marketing consultancy where he developed and executed online strategies for a wide breadth of organizations. In this episode, Tim discusses what he does in his current role, the common challenges he sees between digital marketing agencies and their clients, the balance between automation and utilizing actual people, the role empathy plays in how you market to your consumers, how to integrate empathy in all aspects of your business, and more!
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Transcript
Hey, hey! It’s Andrea and welcome to the Voice of Influence podcast. Today, I have with Tim Bay. Tim is currently Head of Digital Marketing at Fellowes Brands, which he’ll explain in a minute, where he is responsible for building comprehensive strategies and programs to drive greater brand awareness, increased engagement and profitable growth via digital channels. Before joining Fellowes, he had accumulated 20+ years of B2C and B2B digital marketing leadership experiences in roles such as vice president of Digital Marketing at Wilton Brands and co-founder of Shay Digital, an internet marketing consultancy where he developed and executed online strategies for a wide breadth of organizations, Gatorade, Ty, etc.
Andrea: So, Tim, we’re thrilled to have you here today on the Voice of Influence podcast.
Tim Bay: I’m excited to be here. Thank you.
Andrea: Well, Tim is also speaking at a conference that I’m also speaking at the end of September, the Digital Experience Summit in Chicago. So, Tim, let’s start with what do you do as head of digital marketing at Fellowes Brands?
Tim Bay: So, I would say at the highest level, it’s looking at how we can leverage digi-channels. That could be website. It could be social. It could be email to achieve our business objectives. You know, these objectives are how do we enhance brand awareness, how do we drive product awareness, and ultimately how do we convert to sales? So, that’s sort of from the business side. You know, thinking about it from a consumer first perspective is what can we do to help people along their journey? And we sell products, everything from shredders to storage boxes, to sit stand desks, to chairs, or to laminators. How can we help people find what they want to find? How can we make it easiest for them to get what they need, to get when they want to get it, and how they want to get it?
Andrea: Great! So, when it comes to digital marketing, you know, you being the head of it, how did you get to that point, like what was sort of the journey that you’ve taken because you mentioned in your bio that you also had a consultancy for awhile? So, we were talking beforehand that it was really interesting that you have been on both sides of agency and client in terms of, you know, this relationship between agency and clients. So, I guess I’m just wondering what has been that path for you?
Tim Bay: So, I actually started out when I was an undergraduate as finance major and accounting minor, and I thought I was going to be a stock analyst or stock researcher at some point. I went back to get my masters and I took my first marketing class for my masters and just fell in love with marketing. And then what led me to digital was I think a little bit of the right brain and left brain and the ability to get the immediate feedback and analyze, you know, what’s working, what’s not working given that sort of real time feedback in terms of what we can do to be more effective. And then from a digital marketing perspective, you know, as you mentioned over the course of my career, I have been on both the client side and the agency side. And largely that depends on where I saw some great opportunities and the ability to learn. And so I like having been on both sides because I think it made me better on the agency side to be able to empathize with the plight of the client and to understand what it’s like to work in an organization. And sometimes there are challenges that you face. And then on the client side, understanding sort of how agencies work and how I can be a better partner from my client perspective, but also understand a little bit of the nuances of agency and helping me in terms of the clients I get the most out of that relationship. I can always feel like, you know, the best relationship, the best partnership is one where it’s mutually beneficial. So, I do feel like being on both sides sort of gives a perspective that allows you to get not only more out of it from your side, but also help be a better partner.
Andrea: Do you think that there are any common mistakes that you’ve noticed, maybe you’ve helped mitigate them so that they don’t happen that when it comes to that relationship between client and agency, when they’re trying to figure out plans and execute plans and all that sort of thing, have you noticed any particular mistakes that kind of pop up quite frequently?
Tim Bay: Yeah. I think the biggest challenge from the client side is believing that you can just offload strategy to an agency and the fact it’s the best relationships and I feel like this from the agency side as well. The best relationships are our partnership and you have to give the right amount of time, you have to be fully vested, you have to be transparent. The more information, the more time that you can spend with your agency, the better ultimately they will be able to be. And I think the other thing too is, and this goes from both sides, is really being honest about what you need in a relationship and what you need in a partnership and what success looks like. Because I think too often you get a few months in and you just realize that things are operating as effectively as you’d like and that comes back sometimes to expectations in terms of how much time, from the agency perspective, they have to spend to manage the account, some of the challenges they might be facing in terms of gaining information or deadlines or things like that. And so I think, you know, going in understanding what is needed from both sides and being committed to doing that and having those conversations up front really helps.
Andrea: So, making sure that the relationship is structured in a way that is going to allow for the time and the energy that needs to be spent in order to establish your goals and get everything in place before you even begin so that you can keep referring back to it?
Tim Bay: Exactly, exactly. And I think part of it too is, you know, you mentioned strategy. Another challenge is if I as the brand can’t communicate a strategy, I can’t expect my agency to actually execute against that strategy effectively. And I think sometimes recognizing that there needs to be some work done first from a strategy perspective before you can engage in agency and in a very effective way. And again, that goes back to just really understanding what you need to do from your perspective to partner successfully with an agency.
Andrea: OK, so at the conference we’re talking about managing and optimizing digital customer experience to drive greater loyalty and profit, and one of the things that I feel like is super important in the managing and optimizing of the experience is the digital piece of, you know, automation and that sort of thing, but then also the people side of things. So, for you, when you’re working at Fellowes or when you’ve worked with other clients in the past, how much energy and effort goes into each side of that equation, the people side versus the automated side?
Tim Bay: I still think the greatest asset that any organization can have is its people. As much as I get excited as a marketer about things like Machine Learning and Artificial Intelligence, you know, there’s nothing that replaces a great team of people. And that’s not just from a customer service perspective but it’s also from sort of thinking proactively about how to create that best customer journey. You have to think about the customer first. You have to be proactive in terms of understanding what is it they want and meet their needs before you can sort of, you know, get them to give you what you want in a way. And so, I think the technology has to work hand in hand with people. I don’t think you can certainly, not anytime soon, I imagine a situation where you feel like whatever technology solution you have is going to be as effective in a lot of areas as just our ability to communicate, interact, engage, and strategically think through issues. Now, there are things that obviously technology can do better than us as humans, right? Things like, you know, quick computing and things like, I think personalization. But at the end of the day, you know, I think people want to feel from a customer service perspective, people want to feel like there’s somebody there on the other end that is helping them out and listen to them and understand the nuances of human language. And I think on the forefront it’s being able to, you know, people want to feel like that experience that we’re providing to them via a website, for example, was created with an understanding of what their challenges are. And that is something that, right now, the best way to do that is with really creative and smart people.
Andrea: Hmm. So, when it comes to giving them a good experience from the outset and would you say, it generally starts out with the website and that sort of thing, right?
Tim Bay: Right.
Andrea: So, you’re going to make sure that the websites optimal for people and then they’re going to encounter people. And so, how do you decide as a company? What is the line that kind of crosses into the actual human experience? So what needs to be automated and what needs to be human to human?
Tim Bay: Well, I think that is always a bit of a challenge, because you want to provide the best experience possible, right? Almost like a customized, you know, white glove treatment, but then you have the realities of just staffing and maybe 24 hours and things like that. So, for us, yeah, I think, we’ve always tried to think about is how do we find that right balance. And also recognizing that in today’s world, there are some times that people, you know, they’d rather chat versus call a phone, and sometimes, they want to sort of do self service. And so, I think for us, it’s looking at the situation. It’s looking at what the product or service is and saying based on that, what are the types of help that people are going to need. If it’s, you know, something very basic, they may want to know dimensions or they may want to know a specific product feature. If it’s something that’s maybe more complex or even more expensive, they may want to be able to talk to somebody and be able to ask that person questions. So, in some cases a really good FAQ, a really good _____ on the page, a chatbot, or even a chat that connects to a human might be we think good enough to provide that direct level of service. But sometimes it’s more than that and that’s part of where I think we have to look at the situation and think about it from the perspective of the consumer, you know, what is that thought process, what is that decision tree looked like for her? And at what point might she get stuck and do we feel like no matter what tactic is we’re doing enough to help her get unstuck from a situation that she’s at?
Andrea: So, I love how much you’re talking about getting her perspective and coming from her perspective. What are some of the best ways to actually figure out what her perspective is? How do you actually take her perspective? Do you ask, do you imagine, or do you use a committee to talk about it? What is the process that you guys go through?
Tim Bay: I think to start off with, there’s got to be a mindset. It’s a mindset, and one of my favorite words in marketing beyond that is empathy. And you have to put yourself in a situation of who that consumer is, so one is understanding who is the consumer. And then, you know, we’ve done a lot throughout my career in lots of places, we’re doing this at Fellowes about building a persona, because the danger is you always look at your customer as yourself. I think, especially in organizations, you know, let’s take for example an engineer talking about the product is very different than a consumer buying the product, right? And so, we very much look at who is our consumer and let’s put ourselves in her situation, understand what’s driving her motivations, what is she looking and what concerns does she have. And part of that is just if you build that persona out and you put yourself in that perspective, you can go very far in terms of understanding that person, but then we supplement that with things like focus groups. It could be any type of research that you can do, maybe it’s first party, maybe it’s third party to sort of build out that understanding. And then of course you have an idea, you build something out, you feel like you’ve done everything you can but you need to test that out. And then you continue to listen after you roll something out to see, are they experiencing what we expect them to be? So, I think it, ultimately, has to be a commitment too. You’re always thinking about that consumer and always thinking about who that person is. It’s not necessarily you, in most cases it’s not thinking about everything through that lens of her. And I think if you do that, it’s always keeping you on the right path in terms of whatever you need to do to make sure that you’re providing the best experience for her.
Andrea: Do you find that the people that do this with you, that work together with you to build this empathy and build the persona, does this translate into better relationships in general with them because they’re able to do that? Because this is not something that people do well in general.
Tim Bay: You know, one of the things that I think that’s really important and whether if you’re talking about ecommerce, digital marketing, management, personal relationships, empathy and trust. So, from a team perspective, one of the things that has always been challenging in terms of building a team is building that level of trust, especially as you’re bringing new people together or asking people to do things that they haven’t done before. And so, one of the byproducts of what you just said is that even from a team perspective, you’re sort of learning to put yourself in somebody else’s position. And that works whether or not you’re talking about website visitor or you’re having a conversation with a teammate about creative or a wire frame, a copy or content. And so, I do think that overtime it does help not just in terms of what you’re trying to do with that particular customer journey but overall.
Andrea: Yeah, I would think so. It’s interesting to me this connection between what we’re trying to accomplish in business and selling and having actual relationships, because we’re sort of taking the idea of having a relationship and taking it to a completely different level when it comes to business. And I think businesses are getting more and more aware and becoming more and more aware and more attuned to the idea of, “No, this really needs to be a relationship with the customer not just, you know, a transaction.”
Tim Bay: Absolutely. You know, I love and I’m passionate about and most of my times thinking about the digital world, from a digital marketing perspective. But when we talk about a customer journey, I always think about that website like a store, if somebody were to walk into a store, what would you want that experience? How would you greet that? What would be the first thing that you say to them? How would you help them navigate the store? If they wanted to talk to you then how would enable that? If they wanted to browse and if they’re a tech person and want to do a little bit of researching, exploring on their own, how would you make that really efficient for them? And I think the other point that you talked about is, again, even though it’s a digital relationship, it’s still relationship. And I think any business, whether you’re selling shredders or you’re selling consulting services, you really do want that to be a long-term relationship. And just from a practical perspective, much easier, much more efficient to engage with your current community of folks that already know you and believe in you and like you than going out and finding new people. So, thinking about anything that we can think about from a digital perspective as a relationship and something that we’re trying to, and this is important for our brand at Fellowes because of what our brand stands for, we want that to translate into the digital world. And so even though it’s a digital relationship or a part of it maybe, we always still think about it as you’re still connecting. It’s just the medium that you’re doing it is different than if you were in person.
Andrea: Yeah. I love the analogy of the website being like a store and how you’d welcome them and all that sort of thing. I think that’s really good. So, when you said that Fellowes has, how did you put that, what you’re trying to be about or what you’re trying to communicate as a brand, what is the communication that you’re trying to communicate as a brand?
Timothy Bay: Well, I think part of our DNA, and so Fellowes has been around for 101 years. It is a family owned and run business. John Fellowes who is our current CEO is a fourth generation. And, you know, one of the things that John has mentioned and he has said this in a couple of different settings is he was told by his dad who’s third generation that they are there to serve the business, not the business or the family and part of our DNA is helping people. We’re very much about workplace wellness, how can we make people feel better? How can we make them work better? It’s really part of sort of our tagline. And so that can’t just be, you know, tagline or slogan but that you have to live it. So, going back to that sort of relationship part, we have to think about “Are we providing value to the consumer?” “Are we giving her the right information?” I mean, obviously from a product perspective, we’re thinking about that in terms of “Are we making it easier for her to do better?” “Are we ultimately make her feel better as part of that experience?” And if that’s part of your DNA, you think about that in every single thing that you do, whether it’s part of your feature set or product, it’s building a website, it’s an email communication, or it’s something on social. And so again, going back to, you know, as a company, when you have this notion of what your values are and what’s your purpose is, it needs to permeate every single thing that you do, including digital marketing.
Andrea: Oh yeah, that’s really, really seems to be important. And I’m curious as to how that plays out. So, when you’re talking about your DNA, the values, the purpose and all that, when you’re needing to build out these different things whether it be product, the service, the website or whatever, like practically speaking, do you look at your DNA first and say, “OK, how can we make sure it does that?” Or is it just something that’s sort of in the back of your mind all the time? Practically speaking, how does that workout for how to integrate that?
Tim Bay: So I think, it’s a bit of both. It is always present at the back of our mind, but we can’t forget to explicitly remind yourself of that. I just walked through with the team recently, a playbook that I call on, you know, how we’re thinking about email marketing. And playbook is basically, here’s the things that we think we need to be doing to do the best that we can in a particular channel or particular tactic. That playbook starts with a reminder of the things that we need to be thinking about from that sort of DNA perspective, thinking about the customer first, thinking about how we’re communicating that in everything that we do, whether it’s a LinkedIn post or an email campaign or a banner. And of course there’s always some sort of spectrum in terms of how much you can do that. You can do a lot more with a blog post than you can with a web banner. But I think, again, you want to always be there to remind yourself consistently that you got to be thinking about _____ that’s always in the back of your mind.
Andrea: Hmm, so you integrate that into the playbook itself too.
Tim Bay: Absolutely. You know, one of the things I’ve learned throughout my career is that it’s really difficult to over communicate something. You know, 99 percent of the time, it’s the under communication that takes a lot of time and a lot of enforcement and reinforcement of something before it becomes part of our sort of daily nature and habit. And in a way, you want to always have a top of mind. It takes a lot to do that and it’s really difficult to over communicate.
Andrea: Yeah, yeah. That’s so good. Tim, I can’t believe it’s already about time to wrap up. But when, you know, people are looking to be a voice of influence and when it comes to either on a team, whether that be on an agency or an a client side, whether it be because we’re thinking about our client or our particular customer or our relationships, do you have something that you would like to leave with the listener in terms of a tip or a strategy or one last thought?
Tim Bay: I think that all of us have something to offer and have a unique perspective. And, you know, I think as managers, as leaders, we want to empower folks, we should also feel just a natural empowerment to give our point of view, you know, to recognize that everybody has a different perspectives. And when we talk about diversity of opinion, you know, it’s so important. And so, I think when you talk about voice of influence is, you know, I think we have to on one hand, you know, _____ sometimes and trust a little bit that our opinion matters. And then, I think, again, as leaders we have to enforce and reinforce that we want to have folks voice. We want to have that level of trust and comfort there because, you know, two smart people are always going to come up with a better solution than one person. And we have to create that environment that facilitates folks having comfort and talking about bringing their perspective and bringing different ideas. And that’s something that has to be nurtured. You just can’t say it’s going to happen. It’s something that you have to continually tend to like you would, a flower garden. If you don’t, it runs over with weeds and eventually the flowers die. I can’t overemphasize how important that to me in terms of building good teams and making sure that people feel comfortable with those works of different ideas and opinions.
Andrea: So good, so good. Thank you, Tim. How can people find Fellowes or find you?
Tim Bay: They can find Fellowes at fellowes.com and then, you know, you can see our social channels from there and they can find me on LinkedIn and Twitter. So, I’m happy to talk to anybody at any point in time. I always love talking to folks who are interested in talking about anything from customer journeys to culture, to digital marketing. I love talking to people.
Andrea: Awesome! Thank you so much for doing that and for sharing your voice of influence with our listeners, and we’ll be sure to link all of the things that you mentioned here in the show notes.
Tim Bay: Great! Thank you very much. I really enjoyed it, Andrea!