Jennifer Stoll of Valtech Explained How to Leverage Digital Marketing Strategies

Do you think it is possible for a generalist to lead a group of experts?

Source: Google image

The answer is yes, as told by Jennifer Stoll, the VP of Strategy at Valtech, who has over 20 years of experience in delivering strategic solutions in different industries. Her experience leading the U.S. Air Force IT team through digital road mapping workshops proved that it is possible for a generalist to guide or facilitate experts in getting the answers that lead to success as long as one knows the methodology and has a strategic mindset.

Impressive Digital Marketing Strategy

Strategy is an ambiguous word. Jennifer summarized it concisely as answering questions, providing direction, and evaluating from different viewpoints. She explained further with three real-life examples, and I was really impressed with how she and her team helped Exelon, a leading energy company, create a central content strategy among its operating companies in a highly organized way. They provided a comprehensive playbook that included workflows, governance, and measurement frameworks to ensure that all content teams were following the same process and workflow. This not only allows management to consistently evaluate the effectiveness of various content marketing strategies, but it also aids in achieving brand consistency.

Source: Jennifer’s presentation slide

Case Study: SC Johnson

Jennifer tasked us with thinking about whether brand sites are needed for SC Johnson, an American multinational and privately held CPG company. Even though it is beneficial to leverage the brand presence of well-recognized umbrella brands like the Pledge, it is also resource intensive and costly to maintain their websites and keep them optimized. As discussed, my group believed that it would be better to keep the individual brand sites because a consolidated one could lead to chaos or confusion among customers. They should design the brand sites with consideration for the brand voices, product details, and target audiences. In particular, Jennifer liked our suggestion on leveraging social media to separate out distinct brand voices. This case study was interesting and gave me a perspective on how digital marketing strategists work.

Leadership Communication is Critical

As shared by Jennifer, a lot of work needs to be performed before giving out a solution, for example, conducting stakeholder interviews, market research, competitive analysis, etc. I was wondering how she was able to manage all these workloads, and she gave a clue that she dedicated some of the tasks to her team members to help in areas like analytics, UX, and creative work. She was accountable for the entire project, but she was backed by a whole team of experts. I could see that, besides having a strategic mindset, it is critical to be skilled in leadership communication in order to pull together a team to work effectively for project deliverables.

My Reflection

I think being a digital marketing strategist is appealing to me because taking on a wide variety of projects can broaden one’s horizons and network. However, I would need a couple more years of work experience to increase my industry knowledge, develop strategic thinking skills, and improve my people skills.

Moving Forward

Jennifer’s sharing triggered me to reflect on my own career path. I started off as a management trainee, rotating across different wagering channel departments to understand the bigger picture. Then I took on a project management role to provide lottery operation consulting services to overseas partners in areas like business process optimization, customer segmentation, marketing strategy, etc. While I enjoyed solving business challenges, I wanted to specialize in a certain area to provide more valuable insights. Therefore, I made my journey to Toronto to acquire knowledge and skills about digital media marketing at George Brown College. So far, I have enjoyed and learned a lot from the program. Despite the fact that I am still figuring out whether I should become a generalist or specialist, I am making progress in getting clearer about what I really like and dislike. I believe that it is okay to be uncertain about the career path because everyone has his/her own pace. As long as we are moving forward, we will get the answer eventually.

Source: Google image