Podcast

CX Education 06: How to know your customers and focus on your unique value proposition with Anthony McLoughlin from Rothy’s

Join Anthony McLoughlin and Michael Ahearn as they discuss how important personalization is, especially around Black Friday and the holiday period.

How to know your customers and focus on your unique value proposition with Anthony McLoughlin from Rothy's
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About this episode

Marketing is critical right now, and if you want to engage your customers and sell your product, you need an effective content marketing strategy for your business.

However, there are no universal truths in marketing, so you need to know your customers, focus on your unique value proposition, and create a top-class customer experience.

In this episode of the CX Education podcast, our host Michael Ahearn welcomes Anthony McLoughlin, the VP of Ecommerce & Growth Marketing at Rothy’s. They chat about the importance of tailoring messaging to customers, the difference between segmentation and personalization, and why video content works so well in retail.

Image for Anthony McLoughlin, VP Ecommerce & Growth Marketing | Rothy's

Guest Speaker

Anthony McLoughlin, VP Ecommerce & Growth Marketing | Rothy’s

Anthony McLoughlin is an innovative and accomplished digital marketing executive with over 20 years of multiple-brand retail, agency and publishing experience with a proven record of accomplishment in digital marketing, social media, mobile strategy, digital content, and CRM. Anthony is currently leading digital as VP Ecommerce & Growth Marketing for Rothy’s, a fashion brand for classic shoe and accessory styles that blend exceptional comfort, innovation and sustainable design.

Anthony’s previous experience includes corporate executive leadership positions at tier-one retail brands including Tailored Brands (Men’s Wearhouse, K&G, Jos. A. Bank, Joseph Abboud, Moores), Bebe, Aeropostale, Gap, Charlotte Russe and Things Remembered. Anthony has been a frequent speaker at Ad:Tech and RAMP & OMMA, and has been quoted in a number of industry publications, including Retail Touch Points, Digiday, and RIS. 

Image for Michael Ahearn, VP of Customer Development & Strategy | Sinch for Marketing

Host

Michael Ahearn, VP of Customer Development & Strategy | Sinch for Marketing

As Vice President of Customer Development & Strategy at Sinch for Marketing, Michael helps enterprises, brands, marketing agencies, media companies and technology providers formulate breakthrough mobile messaging strategies and customer engagement solutions.

A pioneer for mobile marketing in the US with 18 years’ experience in mobile customer interaction, he has helped Fortune 500 companies and brands across every industry vertical shape their strategic marketing and business operations in the mobile channel.

Clients have included Coca Cola, Starbucks, Western Union, IHG, Comcast, Best Buy, Discover, Tailored Brands, Zeta Worldwide, Cheetah Digital, Zeta, Deutsche Bank, T-Mobile, Skechers, Express, Cabela’s, Albertsons, Eddie Bauer, Barak Obama 2008, and many others. 

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Key insights

You can’t communicate with all your customers in the same way. That’s why tailoring your marketing strategy to specific customer groups is vital. Anthony explains, “In the world that we operate in, there’s just so much messaging and so much media that it’s just so important to get it really specific and to be really focused on the value proposition of that particular customer in that particular moment — knowing that next week you’re going to probably be speaking to the same customer in a different moment, and it all has to be relevant and make sense.” 

Understanding your customers is the key to success in marketing. Anthony says, “Know your customer. Understand that it’s not going to work verbatim every single time. And just give it more thought up front. It’s about understanding your customer and understanding the channels that relate to the customer at the end of the day. And not every single channel is going to work the same way.”

One of the most common mistakes brands make is trying to be everything to everyone. And that’s not possible. Anthony says, “What happens is — and it’s happening more acutely because of the macroeconomic situation — that you’re trying to be all to all at the same time in the same way, and you can’t. You can’t just flash these promotions. You can’t flash these messages to every single consumer in the same way because, over time, they’ll drown them out. And so, I think the mistake is trying to be too promotional to a wider audience too quickly and to show all your promotional hands to send the same type of messaging to everyone.” 

Episode highlights

Segmentation vs. personalization

“There’s a big distinction between segmentation and personalization, and I think that what gets lost is that marketers think that doing personalization is actually doing segmentation, and it’s really not. And so, with segmentation, if you’ve done the heavy lifting I talked about previously, and you score them at the database, you’re using these attributes to build the audiences and create specific messaging to a group about a need for the business, and then, you layer on personalization.”

Leverage video content to sell your product

“We live in a visual society. All decision-making is done in a browse moment, and you’re not really spending a lot of time. And so, the way you win the heart is creating these dynamic visual experiences, and I actually really recommend using video and interactive engagement because that really differentiates the moment and creating these covetable videos and these covetable interactive creatives where you’re really showing the product in its ultimate use case.”

Diversify your content

“It really has to be about broadening the customer experience to understand that not everything in season will be decided by a transaction, that you’re trying to also build the business of the future, to stay true to your value proposition on the product — and hopefully that fits perfectly with your brand proposition if it’s done well — and to lean heavily into content, and then, to make sure that the content’s diversified. You just don’t have one type of video. You need several types of videos broken out by different cohorts and then powered through personalized messaging.”
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