Attentive: Kasey Hickey on ruthless prioritization
Oct 14, 2024
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Kasey Fleisher Hickey, Senior Director of Brand and Content at Attentive, shares her expertise in content strategy and brand building. She discusses the importance of prioritization in daily tasks and the overlap between content and brand identity. Kasey dives into strategies for impactful marketing during major retail events like Black Friday, emphasizing proactive collaboration across teams. She also touches on the role of AI in enhancing customer engagement and the need for brands to create memorable experiences in a competitive landscape.
Kasey Hickey emphasizes the need for content teams to prioritize high-impact projects to maximize effectiveness and resource allocation.
The integration of brand storytelling into content strategy is essential for creating memorable customer experiences and differentiating Attentive in a competitive market.
Deep dives
The Role of Brand and Content at Attentive
Attentive operates as an AI-powered mobile marketing platform specializing in SMS and email marketing, primarily targeting retail and direct-to-consumer brands. The brand’s unique positioning emphasizes personalized customer engagement through innovative content solutions that align marketing efforts with customer needs. Casey Hickey explains that her expanded role involves harmonizing brand and content strategies, ultimately focusing on how brand influences customer experiences across various touchpoints. The integration of brand storytelling into content marketing is seen as a pivotal factor in differentiating Attentive in a competitive space.
Prioritizing Impactful Content Over Quantity
A significant challenge for content marketing teams is balancing the support of other departments while pursuing their own strategic content goals. Hickey emphasizes the importance of focusing on high-impact projects rather than creating content for its own sake, which she believes can dilute overall effectiveness. With a small resource pool, her team employs a disciplined approach in evaluating new projects based on potential impact, risks, and resource allocation. This methodology helps ensure that the team invests time in creating meaningful content that truly resonates with their audience.
Developing Strong Cross-Functional Relationships
Building cross-functional relationships is crucial for a content team to thrive, enabling them to evolve from being mere service providers to valued partners within the organization. Hickey implemented an intake process that encourages collaborative problem-solving rather than just fulfilling requests, fostering a stronger partnership among departments. This approach not only empowers other teams to identify their content needs more clearly but also equips them with guidelines and templates to enable efficient collaboration. As a result, Hickey's team has been able to create a resource hub that aligns with sales needs while managing the overall content workflow effectively.
The Importance of Brand Consistency
The conversation highlights the importance of maintaining brand consistency across all customer interactions, which is fundamental for customer retention and recognition. Hickey notes that while every team member plays a role in shaping the brand, her team's focus is on creating unified messaging and experiences that reflect the company's ethos. The meticulous attention to brand elements—such as tone, visuals, and customer engagement—ensures that customers receive a cohesive experience, whether they engage with Attentive online or in-person. This strategic approach to branding is seen as essential in a competitive market where features alone do not guarantee success.
In this episode of Content Briefly, we've interviewed Kasey Fleisher Hickey, Senior Director, Brand and Content at Attentive, and discussed the product, prioritizing daily tasks, creating impactful content, how content and brand overlaps, and more.
04:58 Black Friday and Cyber Monday marketing campaigns.
06:14 Experience leading content at Attentive for 4 years.
08:08 Content as a program vs. content as a service.
11:03 Content team structure at Attentive.
12:10 Setting boundaries between other teams.
17:40 Content prioritization and being disciplined. 20:03 How brand and content overlap. 21:49 Brand team at Attentive. 23:23 Brand as a differentiator. 25:20 Building a consistent experience for customers. 27:45 Doing more with less. 29:56 Learn more about Kasey and Attentive and get in touch. 30:34 Outro