Marketing Stories Flashcards
S, C, A, R, L
Prioritization
S: In my last role overseeing the Marketing Ops portfolio, we had many competing requests from different stakeholders. (limited resources / budget)
C: We needed a framework to maximize impact to the org and to our members but also have a rationale behind our decisions
A: 1: I first pulled a x-fnxtl workshop to align on the vision and mission of the org and broke that down into our team’s contributions through marketing projects and outcomes
2. Next we organized the work by mapping to a level of effort vs impact matrix that allowed us to prioritize and organize tasks into a roadmap - for example quick wins vs nice to haves.
3. We leveraged Monday.com as our central PM tool to document the work and reviewed weekly as a team to discuss progress, hot spots, and celebrate wins. We would review with stakeholders as well on a monthly basis to invite feedback and encourage dialogue - showing that sometimes it’s not ‘no’ it’s just ‘not now’ and here’s why, clearly connecting the work to the top priorities.
R: This approach greatly improved visibility into the team’s work, the impact we were making, and improved cross-functional collaboration across teams. Served as a blueprint for the rest of the org.
Adaptations:
1. When prioritizing, at a high level I take tasks through an importance vs urgency lens for the daily, and more strategically use impact vs effort when managing a larger portfolio. For example, when managing campaigns on nike.com I had a time-sensitive creative brief that needed approval vs a longer-term personalization strategy. I worked on the brief first since it was both urgent and important, and pushed out the personalization project to the following week, communicating with stakeholders about why and inviting feedback.
R: This approach allowed us to meet our commitments while maintaining an eye and making progress on the longer-term strategic goals.
Process Improvement
S: When I was in Brand Ops, the team was facing challenges with inconsistent marketing workflows across teams and inefficiencies in intake requests which was causing campaign delays. *bottlenecks and fix the gaps.
A: 1: The first thing I did was a bit of discovery - I led a workshop with the broader teams (marketing, analytics, creative, tech) to map out the current pain points to identify where the bottlenecks where happening, for example when managing requests and handoffs. We then co-created what the future, standardized workflow should look like
2. Once we had the requirements, we piloted a small use case with Monday.com to test out the new workflow and automating the intake process. We gathered feedback from the teams testing and iterating and refined as needed until the results showed a more effective workflow.
3. Lastly, we rolled out the new workflow and tool supported by a strong transition plan for smooth adoption. We held several trainings where teams could ask questions and give input, demos, and had the pilot team share the benefits with the rest of the community.
4. This approach allowed us to cut campaign timelines by 32% and improved overall team engagement and collaboration as well.
L: Taught me the importance of engaging others in the process early and often - and when they have a hand in it the better chances of them adopting it.
CRM Vendor Eval
S: When I was a PM in Analytics supporting Marketing Ops, one of my responsibilities was to lead a project to updated our outdated CRM system - it was becoming obsolete and limited our ability to target, segment and personalize. There were also data quality concerns as it didn’t integrate with other customer systems.
A 1: The first action was defining and aligning on the right criteria for the CRM. I pulled a x-fnctl workshop together to get clear on success metrics - (prioritizing metrics like data accuracy, data privacy, scalability, and flexibility) or swap to things like segmentation, targeting. . .
2. I used this data to help guide an RFP process to evaluate different vendors - organizing live demos and reference checks to compare and contrast against our criteria
3. Before making our final decision, we ran a small pilot program - being able to test for things like data validation, segmentation accuracy, and data cleansing to mitigate risks.
R: By the end, we selected and rolled out the new CRM to the team which was able to reduce manual reporting errors by 50%.
Lead Scoring and Nurturing
S: As a Senior PM supporting the Marketing team, we needed a better way to score and nurture leads. Without it, couldn’t serve the right content to the right members at the right time.
A: 1. Defined Lead Scoring Criteria:
a. Conducted a workshop to align on business goals and behaviors that signaled high-value leads, such as membership duration, purchase frequency, and browser activity.
b. Established scoring thresholds tailored to segments like recreational runners (seeking discounts) and long-time members (interested in loyalty perks).
Implemented Marketo for Automation:
- Partnered with IT to configure Marketo, to enable better segmentation and automate our nurturing workflows.Designed personalized email campaigns triggered by lead scores, such as promotions for new members and loyalty programs for returning customers.
- Optimized Campaigns with Analytics:
a. Monitored metrics like open rates, CTRs, and conversion rates using Marketo and Tableau dashboards.
b. Conducted A/B tests on subject lines, send times, and content formats, which revealed that mid-morning emails with storytelling visuals outperformed others by 15%.
Shared insights during weekly reviews to ensure continuous improvement.
R:
Achieved a 25% increase in conversion rates
Reduced unsubscribes by 15% through better audience segmentation and targeting.
L: Improved team confidence in lead tracking and automation, setting a new standard for future campaigns.
Budget Cut
S: High level, I approach financial management by aligning our expenses with the strategic priorities, keeping regular communication and clear expectations with stakeholders, and optimizing for efficiency. For example, at Nike when managing our campaign portfolio, we experienced a 10% budget cut - but were still expected to increase engagement and scale personalization.
A1: Conducting an analysis - past campaign performance to get a read on which campaigns were lower performing, so we could re-allocate resources to the higher impact, higher ROI campaigns - such as targeting segments who had more consistent revenue drivers like trend setters or early adopters. (While this did impact some stakeholders temp. I had open conversations about it to align on the path forward, rationale)
2. I next leveraged the strong and strategic vendor bench I had built over the years to make some creative edits - with our primary vendor, I used our long-standing partnership to re-negotiate rates and moved to a deliverables-based contract.
3. I then load-balanced the work by having in-house resources take on smaller assets using Canva and templates to reserve agency dollars for higher impact deliverables.
R: As a result, we were able to increase engagement with the higher impact campaigns, and we delivered not only within budget and were able to save costs by 15% with the contract negotiations as well*.
Stakeholder Conflict
S: In my last role when rolling out our Athlete Insights and MarTech solutions, we had different opinions between two teammates. Marketing wanted enhanced, real-time personalization and IT raised security and privacy concerns - given we dealt with a lot of PII and HIPPA protected data as a group.
A1: The first thing I did was create a safe space for the teams to express their voices, opinions, and concerns.
2. After hearing both sides inputs I facilitated a discussion with the outcome of having a shared goal, driven by the project’s vision and mission. I helped reframe concerns into shared needs and translate tech speak into marketing benefits.
3. I then proposed a phased approach - where we would soft launch with lighter personalization features that didn’t compromise security - and use the time to vet and validate scalable solution with our legal, privacy, and tech teammates.
R: This satisfied Marketing and Tech - and we were able to eventually launch the full solution that increased engagement while adhering to a fully vetted security solution.
L: Taught me how to navigate conflict between others by empathizing, and reframing concerns into shared goals. For example, tech’s hesitations around protecting member data could be translated into “ensuring member trust and confidence in our brand’.
Data to Drive ROI
S: At Nike, the NA performance marketing team was struggling to report out ROI on campaigns, due to inconsistent and siloed reporting. As an Analytics PM supporting this team I stepped in to use to data to help quantify the work.
A. 1. The first piece was identifying the metrics and unifying the data - we aligned on KPIs such as new member acquisition, retention, conversion and overall campaign ROI. And then integrated data from MarTech and CRM systems to have a holistic picture of what was happening with campaigns and our members.
2. We then analyzed the data to turn them into insights - we built real-time performance dashboards using Tableau, to see which areas had lower vs higher returns on investment, focusing on drivers like segmentation and timing.
We used A/B testing to optimize, test, and refine our marketing strategies.
3. Lastly, we pulled our findings into a compelling and visual presentation for leadership, with actionable recommendations such as re-allocating resources from lower performing to higher performing initiatives that were more strategic.
R: We were able to improve campaign ROI by 15% and reduced Ad spend as a result, and impressed our stakeholders with clear, compelling and data-driven recommendations.
VIP Earnings Call
S: As a PM in Analytics we were about to launch a release on our Marketing Insights Portal - however experienced unexpected errors on the site that threatened to delay the launch. This was urgent since our Marketing VP was dependent on the metrics and insights from this release to discuss on an upcoming Earnings Call.
A1: The first thing was to stay calm and get as much data as I could - I pulled a small huddle together from marketing, tech, analytics to unpack what was driving the issue. After organizing and brainstorming solutions, we prioritized by looking at urgent and highest impact fixes - things like stabalizing the data streams that would show digital traffic or retention metrics first.
2. I then reallocated our team to work on the fixes by prioritizing their workload and pushing lower priorty projects to after the launch, we engaged in a conversation with stakeholders involved on any impacts and explained our rationale.
3. While we did have to dial down some of our more advanced features like predictive modeling, the site was released on-time and the executives were able to successfully run the call.
L: Taught me how to collaborate under pressure and keep open lines of communication when moving through agility.
Gladys Growth
S: I lead with what I call the 6 “Es” Empathy, Empowerment, Energizing and Celebrating, Expectation Setting, Encouraging Feedback, and wrap it up with Equity and Inclusion. And I’ll walk you through an example
C: I hired a brilliant creative marketer several years back, however they struggled with public speaking and this was a critical skill given our influential role in innovation.
A1: Learn more about her POV, in our 1x1 we sat down where I learned this was a major fear of theirs and they identified as more of an introvert.
2. I started by sharing simple resources, tips and frameworks when prepping for presentations - as I empathize with feeling introverted at times and love to prepare.
3. Next, I dedicated weekly sessions with her to role play and practice. I then gave her opportunities to practice in front of smaller, and then larger audiences to refine and get feedback.
R: By a year later, this employee was giving a high-profile presentation to our executive leadership team, and delivered with confidence and competence. This exposure allowed me to promote her 6 mo. later. It is my proudest moment as a manager.
Hackathon
S: I’m a big advocate of allowing the teams to reach their antennaes out into the marketplace and bring back relevant trends - especially in the ever evolving MarTech Space.
C: In my last role when I started leading a bigger team - I noticed some of our engagement scores were low in learning and development - which in Innovation was a big problem.
A1. At our next monthly workshop I led the team to provide their input for a 3-part process:
1. Making it a habit to do retros after every marketing project - where we would be honest at telling each other what worked, what didn’t, and how can we apply these learnings to the next time.
2. Contribute to a shared insights hub using Miro digital canvas whiteboard, where folks could post interesting podcasts, articles, or books they were reading relevant to our space - this is also where we would capture what conferences, trainings, or events teams wanted to attend so I could advocate for them in budget meetings.
3. The last piece was partnering with internal and external teams on Innovation Challenges or even ‘Hackathons’ where we could get out of the day-to-day to support bigger problems leveraging different skillsets, 2x we committed a small % of capacity here.
R: Our engagement results went up and the output of the work improved too - one of the techniques our marketer learned at a conference created a beautiful campaign around motherhood - it increased engagement by 123% and served as a blueprint for all future projects.
Inclusivity Campaign
S: in my last role at Nike I was responsible for leading and launching a large inclusivity campaign.
C: The project required input from several stakeholders as we were telling an intimate story around motherhood insights - from prenatal to postpartum.
A. In the strategy and planning stage, I organized a kick off to workshop goals / outcomes, key audience, KPIs, resources required and pulled a project timeline together. We tracked the project in Monday.com and met weekly to review progress.
B. We then engaged with external partners to develop and design creative - including messaging, visuals and video content. We built in checkpoints with legal and other teams to ensure we got approval.
C. Next we setup the campaign in Marketo, using ab testing to optimise content and timing and QA tools to validate, cleanse audience segmentation and preview.
D. Once we were a go we launched the campaign in phases monitored in real time to adjust as needed.
E. We then reported out insights and captured learning to apply to the next launch (lot of last min requests)
R: This campaign increased engagement by 123% and we saw purchase for maternity products rise as well. It became viral and a blueprint for future processes
Matt Nurse Story
Sure: When I was leading campaigns in my last role at Nike - I ran some focus groups and learned that there was an unmet demand in a different segment we weren’t focusing on, apparel to footwear. I worked with strategy to run some numbers and estimated $900M addressable market for this segment. I pulled a sharp busiess case together and pitched to leadership.
C: However a few leaders were hesistant to approve the proposal and I need to bring them along the journey
A. 1. Sit down 1x1 with the leaders to better unpack what was driving their concerns - I learned one functional leader feared misuse of the data - and the other engineering VP was concerned since the OG product was developed by a 3rd party - daunting to edit someone elses code.
2. once i had the insights I could advocatae for a solution that met their needs. I brough in legal and privacy to show how our tech stack met all complianc estandared an dportecting the data, and for egineering - I was able to convince an influentail dat ascientnd and HE evangelized the idea with th rest of the dvel community.
R: We weree able to get thee first phase approved, and as we delviered value drops along the year, the team grew and evolved into a highly influental and strategic support team for the marketing / brand org.
L: Taught me persistance and building empathy can go a long way in influencing annd building trust and relationships with others.
Introvert Adaptation
S: When I first became a people manager in North America at Nike - I noticed a few members on my team weren’t actively participating in our creative brainstorming sessions. At first I thought they lacked interest - but later received feedback that I wasn’t creating an environment that supported thier communication styles.
C: This hit home - as I realized I had a leadership blind spot and was committed to correcting.
A: Sit down 1x1 to better understand from the employee POV - internal processors
2. Pulled the whoel team together SF and mutual understanding
3. Adapted my style
R: Not only did we see employee engagment scorecs go up but the outputs form the sesseion sinporved as well since ethe whole team could contrubte in a more thougtful way.
L: Learned how to tune my style to diversity of thinkers and communication preferences.
NAAx Bandwidth
S: At Venli taking over the Ops part of our creative content and marketing portfolio, I managed a lean team tasked with delivering impactful marketing initiatives. We faced a high volume of requests, often with competing deadlines, which caused stress and hindered the team’s performance.
Complication:
During 1:1s, I realized that some team members felt overwhelmed and others were unsure how to prioritize tasks or improve their efficiency. I needed to provide better development opportunities and guidance.
Actions (1, 2, 3):
1. For Development:
• I introduced individual development plans to align team members’ goals with the broader marketing operations strategy.
• Encouraged team members to own specific workflows, like reporting automation or campaign intake processes, allowing them to develop expertise while contributing to key projects.
2. Focused on Training and Tools:
• organize training sessions on MarTech tools like Marketo and Monday.com, ensuring the team had the skills to handle complex workflows.
• Set up peer-led workshops where team members shared best practices, improving collaboration and knowledge-sharing.
3. Streamlined Processes to Empower the Team:
• Collaboratively developed a streamlined project intake system using Monday.com, which reduced bottlenecks and improved team visibility into priorities.
• Held weekly team stand-ups to review workloads, address challenges, and celebrate wins, creating an open environment for feedback and support.
Results:
• The team reduced campaign turnaround times by 32% and improved intake efficiency by 38%, significantly increasing productivity.
• Employee engagement scores rose by 15% in the next pulse survey, with team members citing improved clarity and support in their roles.
• Several team members were promoted or moved into leadership roles within the broader organization, reflecting their growth and readiness for larger responsibilities.
Learning:
This experience reinforced that coaching is about balancing support and accountability while creating opportunities for growth. Empowering team members to take ownership of their work and providing the tools they need fosters both confidence and results.
Regulatory Compliance
S: I have years of experience at Nike handling projects and campaigns that had PII, HIPPA protected and other sensitive considerations such as financials and biometrics data.
C. My approach was always to engage with the right approving teams such as legal, privacy, and ethics early and often to ensure we were in compliance. Especially when laws change such as Europe’s GDPR regulations.
A. In fact, mid-way through a body inclsuivty campaign we needed to pivot our strategy becuase of this change. And legal wasn’t approving some of visuals since they were based on individual athlete data.
B. I pulled a workshop together to branstorm solutions and trade-offs, with the goal of being able to launch while adhering to compliance.
C. We were able to pilot and get approval for aggregating and anonomyzing, and abstracting the data so that it met the standards.
R: This built a great relationship iwth our parnters while allowing us to launch engaging campaigns.
L: Learned the power of engaging teams early and often.
Runner’s Engagement Plateau
Tell Me About Yourself, Walk through your resume
Overview:
So I’ve spent 16 years leading product, marketing and operations strategies across Nike and now a local startup, really focusing on project management excellence and making the lives of our marketing teams easier through improving workflows and delivering on-time and on-budget.
I started out in Operations, in Nike Sustainability - where I learned how to empathize with member pain points to build better, more personalized campaigns and content around them. I loved that work, so I scaled that capability into spaces like Finance, Digital Marketing, and Analytics - where I leveraged data and insights to increase campaign ROI by 15%.
I was then asked by Innovation to come on as a director overseeing the Marketing Ops and Creative Storytelling Portfolio - where I managed a cross-functional team, vendors, and budgets to drive more strategic work by connecting our initiatives to the broader organizational objectives. My approach there helped cut campaign timelines by 32% while increasing visibility into the team’s projects.
My most fulfilling role at Nike was actually serving as Vice Chair of Communications - where I was able to partner with local organizations in Portland’s backyard to promote and elevate awareness around the needs of our underserved communities, for example working with CAP on the Aid’s Walk or building campaigns to help people with disabilities. This ignited my passion for community driven work. And a large reason for my excitement around this role.
And then in terms of what’s next - I’m currently at a startup heading up Product and Tech Ops but am eager to be able to apply my marketing ops expertise to a more member driven and mission driven organization like OnPoint (if time, mention I’ve been informally part of the family for most of my life - my dad, a teacher, helped me open up my first bank account with PTCC and my mom proudly works for onpoint in commercial lending - so I’ve seen first hand how OnPoint has served the community by putting people and purpose first.
Xcelerate
S: When I was a Sr. PM in Analytics - I was asked to support a high stakes marketing deliverable - aimed to influence how Nike invested in data and analytics. The timeline was tight with a vague brief - we had 3 weeks to deliver a highly compelling video. and there were over 10 teams across the globe involved, including vendors. There was no clear owner, and the project started to stall.
A1. I stepped in and organized a cross-functional kick-off, where we aligned on the objectives, dependencies, owners, and deadlines for each task.
2. I then organized recurring stand-ups to review progress, help needed and get feedback from stakeholders on the direction. I’d follow up with next steps to keep folks accountable and reach back out if needed.
3. When we started to run out of time, I proposed a reduction in scope without sacfrifcin gquality - I led a discussion around focusing on a small case study that focused on Women’s Flyknit to tell the story of data and analytics across the company.
R. The results were that we were able to deliver the marketing video on time and were personally commended for the x-functional effort. The asset went viral around the company and helped influence Nike’s investment in a 500+ person organization around data science and analytics.
L: Power of clear alignment, regular tbs, and breaking down the complex into managable pieces.
Why OnPoint, Why This Role
Yeah, I’ve been a member of the OnPoint Family for most of my life - my dad, a teacher, helped me open up my first bank account with Portland Teacher’s Credit Union - and my Mom has proudly worked at OnPoint in Commercial Lending for over 12 years. I’ve seen first hand how authentically OnPoint puts its people, purpose and community first.
For my career, I took a mini-sabbatical before leaving Nike and realized what motivates me most in this season in my career is getting back to a place where I can leverage my Marketing skillsets for the good of the community.
That’s what excites me most about this role - the ability to improve efficiency and apply my marketing Ops skillsets that drove growth over from a corporation to a more member and mission-driven organization like OnPoint.
Strengths
- Customer-centric problem solver - naturally able to empathize with people’s pain points to build impactful solutions around them. Also with relationships - Heidi Stockton
- Strategic and Technical Leadership - my background in art, business, and science allows me to bridge the gap between high level organizational goals and technical execution. At Nike for 15+ years I was the conduit between Marketing, Tech, Analytics, and Leadership to streamline communications and deliver on-time, on-budget projects.
- Data-Driven Decision Maker - I’m a nerd at heart and love being able to use analytics where I can - for example when synthesizing member insights for the product teams, we found that 85% revenue came from 15% of the styles - this helped inform better strategies around offering less styles in more colors and tuning marketing campaigns around the shift as well.
Short Term Vs Long Term Decisions
Sure! It’s critical to balance immediate needs without compromising longer-term strategic objectives. When planning my portfolio I allocate a certain % usually 15-20 percent to make progress on longer-term goals.
S:For example, when working on the marketing insights portal in NA, we faced pressure to deliver insight reports quickly for upcoming steering committee meetings - however this would derail our development on a more robust analytics platform
A: After discussing with the team, we decided to do a quick insights dashboard for the meeting while reserving capacity to develop the sustainable solution.
R: This allowed the execs to have a more productive session and the approach secured funding and buy-in for the long-term platform we needed to build.
Leading / Hi-Po Team
Lead with Sara’s 6 E’s
S: When our team grew in Innovation we absorbed several new employees and there was a lack of clarity and alignment across the 2 teams, and this challenge put our mktg. deliverables at risk
A: 1. Lead with Empathy, led listening sessions by meeting with every team member to understand goals, pain points, and aspirations. I also met with stakeholders to understand external and broader expectations from the new team.
2. I then used those insights to advocate and empower the team by organizing opportunities where they could take ownership of even the small wins that also accelerated org goals. I helped align their work with the bigger picture so they could clearly connect the dots between their work and the overarching Marketing vision.
3. I then introduced some structure through expectation setting, Kicking off a Teaming excercise where we co-created our Team vision, strategy and tied it back to the larger org agenda. We then designed IDPs that the team took on and we co-created both personal .
4. Lastly, we ensured ongoing feedback loops from our parnters and the team through regular retros, collecting learnings that we would bring into into future ways of working.
R: After 3 months, engagement scores soared and we were honored with an Innovation Award themed around effective-cross collaboration that delivered results.
