There are so many fun, challenging jobs in the world of marketing and branding. But without doing every job ourselves, it can be hard to know what they’re all about.
We spoke to Alexa Kilroy about what it’s like to work in branding. Starting her career in ecom, Alexa quickly took on lots more responsibility. Soon, she was managing media buying, writing ad copy, and leading performance marketing campaigns, all while reading up on advertising psychology, helping her understand how to win customers back.
Now Head of Brand at Triple Whale, Alexa’s varied background has given her a unique outlook, allowing her to throw herself into every aspect of her work. We found out what a typical day looks like for Alexa, learnt how to use customer data to supercharge campaigns, and got her views on the tension between performance and brand marketing.
A day in the life
No two days are the same for Alexa. Her role as Head of Brand at Triple Whale spans the whole of the marketing team.
“My to-do list is hectic right now!” Alexa told us. “On a day-to-day level, I do a lot of speaking gigs at different conferences, mostly focused on e-commerce. I do a lot of PR too, getting our opinions into publications like the New York Times.”
Content is a huge part of the Triple Whale brand and another area Alexa devotes her time to. The brand’s YouTube channel publishes regular videos on all things e-commerce, growth and media related. They have an active blog full of tips from industry experts. And they run and distribute a number of podcasts. “The podcasts are great for us,” Alexa shared. “We get a lot of sign-ups coming directly from them.”
Going back to consumer psychology, this particular channel reaches Triple Whale customers at the best time. “Our customers and potential customers tend to be busy people who don’t have time to read lots of content,” Alexa explained. “Instead, they listen to podcasts while they’re on the go - at the gym, travelling etc. So it’s one of our top formats as we’re getting in front of the right people.”
“Make sure you’re 100% before you commit to a position as Head of Brand.”
When she's not flying off to speak at a conference, producing podcasts or working on the brand’s overall content strategy, Alexa will be working on events, swag, partnerships or case studies.
Because of the nature of the role, Alexa reminded us that not every Head of Brand will have the same duties. “Make sure you’re 100% before you commit to a position as Head of Brand,” Alexa advised. “The best way to find a role is to network, speaking to the leadership team in brands you’d love to work for. Then when the time comes for you to interview, make sure you find out what good will look like. How will you measure success? What kind of projects will you work on? Move slowly and make sure it’s right for you before you commit.”
On the other hand, companies need to know what they’re looking for too. Ideally, your brand head should be someone, like Alexa, with abilities in both visual and written creative design. They need to be able to think strategically too. If you can’t find the right person, Alexa recommends looking for a senior creative person with similar experience, while also going after a strong community person.
Know your customer
A huge part of Alexa’s role revolves around staying close to her customers. “I’ll never give up working on case studies because it helps me to see the value the customers are getting out of our product and how they use it.”
Alexa lives by the principle of becoming a student of your customer. Immersing herself in all her customers' thoughts, feelings and opinions helps Alexa tailor marketing campaigns that will resonate.
“When I first start a job, I spend the first two weeks doing nothing but interviews, both internal and external,” she explained. “I do internal interviews with everyone that’s been with the company awhile, as well as my team, to understand what they know about the company, what they perceive our brand to be, what they think our marketing values are etc.
“Then I go talk to the customers. I speak to everyone from the angriest, grumpiest customers who’ve churned, through to lukewarm and disinterested, and finally to people who absolutely love us and our products.” It’s not just about the product, though. Alexa also wants to understand how customers feel about every marketing touchpoint. “I ask them their feelings about how we interact with them, our social media presence, and so on.”
“When you spend that much time learning deeply about what your customer thinks, breathes and interacts, with touchpoints, you’ll get
insights.”
To complete the picture, Alexa read reviews of Triple Whale and their competitors. Then, she put it all together and communicated it with the team. “I shared everything I’d done, breaking it down into:
“Using this information, we could begin to see where we could improve. What could we do to our brand image, customer experience, etc. to get to our goals? When you spend that much time learning deeply about what your customer thinks, breathes and interacts, with touchpoints, you’ll get insights.”
These kind of insights prove how valuable they are when the start informing marketing decisions. Using what she knows about her customers helps Alexa to delight, acquire and retain the most valuable customers. “As an example, we know Black Friday is a time of stress for a lot of our customers, so we wanted to send them something to help them relax.” Alexa told us. “I asked our sales teams for a list of their top customers, top prospects, and anyone they were worried might churn. These people all got the gifts. We actually saw that a lot of the people receiving the gifts would be men, so we made sure the self-care parcels were non-gendered.”
Performance vs. brand marketing
Having worked in both brand awareness and performance marketing, Alexa’s experience has shaped her views on the tension between the two. “There’s an idea that brand marketers want to fiercely protect the brand, so everything has to be polished and on-brand, while performance marketers don’t mind sacrificing the brand for conversion,” Alexa explained.
“Having been on both sides, I can see all the points of view. But in my mind, it comes down to this: if you’ve done your job right as a brand marketer, you should be able to go to Times Square in New York (or wherever your target market is), ask several people to describe your brand, and get a consistent answer. You want consistent, ideally positive, brand awareness.
“Not every asset needs to be perfect. As long as you’ve got big things, like website, content, brand messaging, in place, your brand
persona will be consistent.”
“A performance marketer is optimising for conversion. In some cases, using a colour that’s not ‘on-brand’ might make an ad convert better. No customer will remember that one, small asset. Not every asset needs to be perfect. As long as you’ve got big things, like website, content, brand messaging, in place, your brand persona will be consistent.”
Continuing on, Alexa left us with a powerful statement: “branding is about so much more than individual ads being in the perfect colour. It’s not going to break your brand.”
There are so many fun, challenging jobs in the world of marketing and branding. But without doing every job ourselves, it can be hard to know what they’re all about.
We spoke to Alexa Kilroy about what it’s like to work in branding. Starting her career in ecom, Alexa quickly took on lots more responsibility. Soon, she was managing media buying, writing ad copy, and leading performance marketing campaigns, all while reading up on advertising psychology, helping her understand how to win customers back.
Now Head of Brand at Triple Whale, Alexa’s varied background has given her a unique outlook, allowing her to throw herself into every aspect of her work. We found out what a typical day looks like for Alexa, learnt how to use customer data to supercharge campaigns, and got her views on the tension between performance and brand marketing.
A day in the life
No two days are the same for Alexa. Her role as Head of Brand at Triple Whale spans the whole of the marketing team.
“My to-do list is hectic right now!” Alexa told us. “On a day-to-day level, I do a lot of speaking gigs at different conferences, mostly focused on e-commerce. I do a lot of PR too, getting our opinions into publications like the New York Times.”
Content is a huge part of the Triple Whale brand and another area Alexa devotes her time to. The brand’s YouTube channel publishes regular videos on all things e-commerce, growth and media related. They have an active blog full of tips from industry experts. And they run and distribute a number of podcasts. “The podcasts are great for us,” Alexa shared. “We get a lot of sign-ups coming directly from them.”
Going back to consumer psychology, this particular channel reaches Triple Whale customers at the best time. “Our customers and potential customers tend to be busy people who don’t have time to read lots of content,” Alexa explained. “Instead, they listen to podcasts while they’re on the go - at the gym, travelling etc. So it’s one of our top formats as we’re getting in front of the right people.”
“Make sure you’re 100% before you commit to a position as Head of Brand.”
When she's not flying off to speak at a conference, producing podcasts or working on the brand’s overall content strategy, Alexa will be working on events, swag, partnerships or case studies.
Because of the nature of the role, Alexa reminded us that not every Head of Brand will have the same duties. “Make sure you’re 100% before you commit to a position as Head of Brand,” Alexa advised. “The best way to find a role is to network, speaking to the leadership team in brands you’d love to work for. Then when the time comes for you to interview, make sure you find out what good will look like. How will you measure success? What kind of projects will you work on? Move slowly and make sure it’s right for you before you commit.”
On the other hand, companies need to know what they’re looking for too. Ideally, your brand head should be someone, like Alexa, with abilities in both visual and written creative design. They need to be able to think strategically too. If you can’t find the right person, Alexa recommends looking for a senior creative person with similar experience, while also going after a strong community person.
Know your customer
A huge part of Alexa’s role revolves around staying close to her customers. “I’ll never give up working on case studies because it helps me to see the value the customers are getting out of our product and how they use it.”
Alexa lives by the principle of becoming a student of your customer. Immersing herself in all her customers' thoughts, feelings and opinions helps Alexa tailor marketing campaigns that will resonate.
“When I first start a job, I spend the first two weeks doing nothing but interviews, both internal and external,” she explained. “I do internal interviews with everyone that’s been with the company awhile, as well as my team, to understand what they know about the company, what they perceive our brand to be, what they think our marketing values are etc.
“Then I go talk to the customers. I speak to everyone from the angriest, grumpiest customers who’ve churned, through to lukewarm and disinterested, and finally to people who absolutely love us and our products.” It’s not just about the product, though. Alexa also wants to understand how customers feel about every marketing touchpoint. “I ask them their feelings about how we interact with them, our social media presence, and so on.”
“When you spend that much time learning deeply about what your customer thinks, breathes and interacts, with touchpoints, you’ll get
insights.”
To complete the picture, Alexa read reviews of Triple Whale and their competitors. Then, she put it all together and communicated it with the team. “I shared everything I’d done, breaking it down into:
“Using this information, we could begin to see where we could improve. What could we do to our brand image, customer experience, etc. to get to our goals? When you spend that much time learning deeply about what your customer thinks, breathes and interacts, with touchpoints, you’ll get insights.”
These kind of insights prove how valuable they are when the start informing marketing decisions. Using what she knows about her customers helps Alexa to delight, acquire and retain the most valuable customers. “As an example, we know Black Friday is a time of stress for a lot of our customers, so we wanted to send them something to help them relax.” Alexa told us. “I asked our sales teams for a list of their top customers, top prospects, and anyone they were worried might churn. These people all got the gifts. We actually saw that a lot of the people receiving the gifts would be men, so we made sure the self-care parcels were non-gendered.”
Performance vs. brand marketing
Having worked in both brand awareness and performance marketing, Alexa’s experience has shaped her views on the tension between the two. “There’s an idea that brand marketers want to fiercely protect the brand, so everything has to be polished and on-brand, while performance marketers don’t mind sacrificing the brand for conversion,” Alexa explained.
“Having been on both sides, I can see all the points of view. But in my mind, it comes down to this: if you’ve done your job right as a brand marketer, you should be able to go to Times Square in New York (or wherever your target market is), ask several people to describe your brand, and get a consistent answer. You want consistent, ideally positive, brand awareness.
“Not every asset needs to be perfect. As long as you’ve got big things, like website, content, brand messaging, in place, your brand
persona will be consistent.”
“A performance marketer is optimising for conversion. In some cases, using a colour that’s not ‘on-brand’ might make an ad convert better. No customer will remember that one, small asset. Not every asset needs to be perfect. As long as you’ve got big things, like website, content, brand messaging, in place, your brand persona will be consistent.”
Continuing on, Alexa left us with a powerful statement: “branding is about so much more than individual ads being in the perfect colour. It’s not going to break your brand.”
